The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

World Literature

Book Buzz: We Do Not Part by Han Kang

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Han Kang, photo by Murdo Macleod

I moved from Gwangju to Seoul in January 1980, at the age of nine with my family. It was just four months before the Gwanju uprising/massacre occurred. After a few years, there were photo books which were printed and circulated secretly to bear witness. I found one of the photo books on the bookshelf of my father, and it became sort of a defining experience in my life. If I were not that young, I would have been more aware of the political aspect. But I was just 12. The photo book contained numerous dead faces with deep wounds and after reaching the end of the photo book, I thought to myself, ‘Humans are scary’. I couldn’t find a way to accept that I am one of these ‘humans’.

However, there were also examples of human dignity and inexplicable strength in the photo book. For example, I saw the endless lines of ordinary people who wanted to donate blood for the wounded right after the mass shooting by the Martial Law army. It was like two unsolvable questions were imprinted on my mind:

How can humans be so violent?

What can humans do something to fight against that extreme violence?

― Han Kang, Interview, Banana Writers

We Do Not Part by Han Kang

What booksellers are saying about We Do Not Part

  • Devastating, gorgeously written and translated. I will be thinking about this book, about Kyungha and Inseon, the snow and the trees, the birds Ama and Ami, and the generations of spirits brought to life in these painful, breathtaking pages. Reading Han Kang’s work feels like a precious honor, and in the incredible wake of her Nobel win, We Do Not Part is an astounding introduction for many new readers.
      ― Emily Tarr, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY

  • A story of friendship/loyalty/loss/war. A dream-like supernatural journey. The reader often wonders what is real and what is not. It is a horrific read (set amidst the genocide on the island of Jeju, Korea in 1948). I found there was almost too much to digest/make sense of while reading this book. But the writing is immersive and beautiful (which powered me through the pages).
      ― Sarah Goldstein, Old Town Books in Alexandria, Virginia | BUY

  • Wow. Nobel laureate Han Kang’s latest work is just brilliant – a profound meditation on friendship and the impact of buried trauma. Kyungha – a writer, troubled by recurring nightmares following her most recent book about a historical massacre – is called on by her friend Inseon to go to her house to look after her pet bird while Inseon is in hospital. While there Kyungha discovers how intimately connected her friend’s family was to the massacre she’d written about. Blurring dream with reality – at once haunting and terrifyingly specific – We Do Not Part proves Han Kang’s Nobel win to be justly deserved.
      ― Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi | BUY

About Han Kang

Han Kang was born in 1970 in South Korea. She is the author of The Vegetarian, winner of the International Booker Prize, Human Acts, The White Book, and Greek Lessons. In 2024 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. e. yaewon is based in Korea and translates from and into Korean, including titles by Hwang Jungeun, Jessica Au, and Maggie Nelson. Paige Aniyah Morris divides her time between the United States and Korea. Recent translations include works by Pak Kyongni, Ji-min Lee, and Chang Kang-myoung.

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We Do Not Part by Han Kang

Devastating, gorgeously written and translated. I will be thinking about this book, about Kyungha and Inseon, the snow and the trees, the birds Ama and Ami, and the generations of spirits brought to life in these painful, breathtaking pages. Reading Han Kang’s work feels like a precious honor, and in the incredible wake of her Nobel win, We Do Not Part is an astounding introduction for many new readers.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang, (List Price: $28, Hogarth, 9780593595459, January 2025)

Reviewed by Emily Tarr, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

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Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawada

The characters that populate Yoko Tawada’s Suggested in the Stars are out of step with one another but cross paths, time, and space, all with what can only be described through Hamlet’s words, words, words. Tawada returns to the characters from Scattered All Over the Earth and their search for Hiruko’s homeland, Susanoo’s language, and the connection between them born of globalization and climate change. Full of light climate dystopia, this book turns your brain around through Tawada’s (and her translator Margaret Mitsutani’s) deft use of language. I am already greatly anticipating the third installment in this trilogy in 2025. I need more of this weird little series, but also don’t want it to end!

Suggested in the Stars by Yoko Tawada, (List Price: $16.95, New Directions, 9780811237932, October 2024)

Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Woo Woo by Ella Baxter

Ella Baxter‘s novel Woo Woo joins a handful of brilliant 2024 books featuring female creatives (All Fours by Miranda July, Colored Television by Danzy Senna, Exhibit by R. L. Kwon). The daily struggle and balancing act of being a productive artist is examined here as conceptual artist Sabine preps for a huge solo exhibition. She is trying desperately to be seen while also hiding from a stalker. She wants to use social media rather than be used by it and all the while her marriage feels off-kilter. Woo Woo gives us insights into a woman trying to come into her own while forces want to make her smaller.

Woo Woo by Ella Baxter, (List Price: $27, Catapult, 9781646222551, December 2024)

Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Spotlight on: On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle

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Solvej Balle, photo courtesy the Fredrik Sandberg

The idea for the book came up a long time ago—in 1987 actually. And that was just the first bits of it, just the idea of a woman stuck in time repeating one day again and again. It took a long time for the idea to actually develop and all the philosophical material to kind of fall into place, because there’s a lot of questions about how this universe is working. So it took a long time and also the person had to develop, the person who ended up being Tara Selter, and also to find out when would it happen and all these little bits and pieces. So, there’s a lot of elements that prolonged the process. Also, there was a film coming out called Groundhog Day, which I didn’t see in the beginning because I thought it was too close. But when I finally saw it, I realized, ah, that’s a lot of nice research for my idea, because I realized it was so different.

― Solvej Balle, National Book Award Interview, Words Without Borders

On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)  by Solvej Balle

What booksellers are saying about On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)

  • The first book in Solvej Balle’s brilliant (and forthcoming in English) septology On the Calculation of Volume is, in a word, stunning. Following the day-to-day minutia of a woman continually reliving the 18th of November, Balle finds the beauty and torment in repetition and recursion and revision. In all honesty, nothing actually happens in this book. But that doesn’t matter. Balle’s writing turns the reader into a balloon hitting a powerline—bright, weightless, fluorescent, until the shock comes. An absolutely stunning piece of fiction.
      ― Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY

  • I’m hooked on this Scandinavian saga that takes a time loop plot and engages with it in a hyper-realistic style. Tara finds the most logical ways to test the boundaries of her new world and ruminates on repetitions and endings in a fresh way that no comparable story has. It’s hard to overstate how precious time is as a resource, and this is made salient as time goes rogue.
      ― Michael Allen, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky | BUY

  • Though the stuck-in-the-eternally-repeating-day scenario hasn’t (yet) been run into the ground, it has fared well-to-fair within a fair share of well thought out, hacky, and well-out hacked renditions. And the one stipulation they communally serve up is [dun dun duhhn] Rules. OtCoV, as a member of the Well Thought Out camp, includes the unique discombobulation of Evolving Rules, as some remnants of our protagonist’s previous November 18 sneak surreptitiously or outright grace her bedside presence come current November 18. Isolation and a lack of consistent input makes the learning mind a veritable playground and we’re sitting playground-benchside feeding the pigeons. This is the first year and volume of a novella septology which’ll leave you feeling concurrently satiated and craving more.
      ― Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY

About Solvej Balle

Solvej Balle was born in 1962, made her debut in 1986 with Lyrefugl, and she went on to write one of the 1990s’ most acclaimed works of Danish literature, According to the Law: Four Accounts of Mankind (praised by Publishers Weekly for its blend of “sly humor, bleak vision, and terrified sense of the absurd with a tacit intuition that the world has a meaning not yet fathomed”). Since then, she’s published a book on art theory, Det umuliges kunst, 2005, a political memoir Frydendal og andre gidsler, 2008, and two books of short prose Hvis and , published simultaneously in 2013. On the Calculation of Volume is Solvej Balle’s major comeback, not just to Danish or Nordic fiction, but—expanding the possibilities of the novel—to all of world literature.

Barbara J. Haveland (born 1951) is a Scottish literary translator, resident in Copenhagen. She translates fiction, poetry and drama from Danish and Norwegian to English. She has translated works by many leading Danish and Norwegian writers, both classic and contemporary, including Henrik Ibsen, Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann and Carl Frode Tiller.

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Canoes by Maylis De Kerangal

I love dragons and a good historical fiction as much as anyone, but lately I find myself seeking good old realistic fiction, and there’s no one better for that than Maylis DeKerangal. Following her English language publication of Eastbound, comes Canoes, a delicious, delightful collection of stories of women living life. Strange, funny, sad, curious, beautiful. The stories of Canoesoffer pinhole insights into lives lived, and will absolutely leave readers changed for the good.

Canoes by Maylis De Kerangal, (List Price: $19, Archipelago, 9781953861962, October 2024)

Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

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Canoes by Maylis De Kerangal

Stories with a strong focus on reading mouths and interpreting voices, relevant for a time when facemasks are coming off. Though this isn’t the main focus, it coats each unrelated story in a relatable primer.

Canoes by Maylis De Kerangal, (List Price: $19, Archipelago, 9781953861962, October 2024)

Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Spotlight On: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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Sally Rooney in Merrion Square, Dublin; Photograph by Ellius Grace, New York Times

Interestingly, the first voice that came to the page for me in this project was Margaret’s — the character who becomes entangled in Ivan’s life in the course of the book. It certainly wasn’t that I sat down thinking, I have to write a book where the male voice is central. I just felt my way through the story that seemed to emerge when I encountered these characters, which is what I always try to do. Of course I had moments of self-reflection and self-consciousness, because I was thinking, What do I know about this form of interiority and specifically — which is different from Connell in “Normal People” — relationships between men?
–Sally Rooney, InterviewThe New York Times

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

What booksellers are saying about Intermezzo

  • Intermezzo is the book I’ve been waiting for Sally Rooney to write, the one I always believed she had in her, by far her best to date. The auspicious talent she’s displayed in her previous novels (all of which I’ve loved to varying degrees), most notably her almost unrivaled ability to identify and animate the emotional valences that exist between people in relationships, has been honed and deepened in Intermezzo, resulting in an abundantly rich emotional journey for readers. The personal-is-political ethos that would all too often result in didacticism and character speechifying has been fully metabolized by Intermezzo’s characters, resulting in full, complex, utterly compelling people. Rooney’s latest is an utterly masterful home-cooked meal, so rich, so satisfying, so nourishing, but never fussy, not bespoke, clearly made by a human’s hands and heart. Intermezzo will engross you, transport you, leave you full. It’s wonderful.
      ― Matt Nixon, A Cappella Books in Atlanta, Georgia | BUY

  • Again, Sally Rooney has written a tender, devastating, and hopeful triumph of a novel. Intermezzo introduces us to Peter and Ivan, brothers who are grieving their father. In the uprooted days that follow, we see them and the people they love as they come to terms with the new shape of the world they live in, and witness the evolution of their complex connections to each other. This is a book that you can speed-read, careening as you experience the depths of love, loss, grief, and purpose that fill these pages. If I were you, though, I’d read slowly, savoring each gem of a page.
      ― Maya Shenoy, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY

  • Easily the best Sally Rooney book. While her writing is stellar, as always, there is something about Peter and Ivan’s story that immediately draws you in. You just have to root for these messy and complicated people as they figure out life and love.
      ― Kelley Barnes, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY

  • This is the millenial’s Mrs. Dalloway – and the best Sally Rooney yet. Intermezzo follows the aftermath of grief on two very different brothers – a chess champion and a high-strung but tenderhearted barrister – and their attempts at meaningful romantic relationships. It’s Rooney, so the characters also act as entry points into larger social commentary, but the lessons she’s imparting are always graceful, never heavy-handed. Small, interpersonal moments cartwheeling out into moving, philosophical passages that made it so I almost couldn’t read this book in public, because it kept making me cry. A total triumph.
      ― Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida | BUY

  • A triumph of a novel that will intensify the fandom of existing Rooney devotees (me!) and doubtless create many new ones. I was entranced by the beautiful sentences, prose whose style was outmatched only by its substance, and the gorgeous complexity of each character as they fought for love, belonging, and understanding. This is a multi-dimensional love story, but above all a love story between brothers. Somehow Rooney is able to lean on archetypes while also subverting and reinventing them, and Peter and Ivan (and Sylvia, and Margaret, and Naomi) will remain in my heart for a long time, stirring me as flesh and blood people do. With one of the tenderest and most perfect endings I can think of in recent contemporary literature–brought me to tears. A standing ovation from me!
      ― Kristen Iskandrian, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY

About Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney is an Irish novelist. She is the author of Conversations with Friends; Normal People; and Beautiful World, Where Are You. She also contributed to the writing and production of the Hulu/BBC television adaptation of Normal People.

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Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai

Herscht opens as Gentle Giant in a Harsh World fable, then morphs into a checklist killfest revenge tale a la Death Rides a Horse, in a transition so sleek you’re tricked into feeling at peace in the heart of its violent outcome. Krasznahorkai books read like laminar flow, daunting and seemingly unreal until you set eye to sentence and the world explodes in all directions. But all in all, it’s just gravity and friction doing their thang. All the Krasznahorkai ingredients are here: heroes are comical despicables, villains risible despisables, a has-been town rundown and endbound, unnurtured nature in retaliature, and a long long sentence to rule them all.

Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai, (List Price: $18.95, New Directions, 9780811231534, September 2024)

Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Spotlight On: Where the Forest Meets the River by Shannon Bowring

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Shannon Bowring, photo credit the author

At the risk of sounding hokey, I’ve always felt destined to write about Dalton, which is inspired by the tiny town where I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine — as far north as you can go in the state before hitting Canada. While all the characters and events in the books are fictional, the beautiful yet isolated setting is borrowed from real life.

From the time I started writing stories when I was a kid, much of my fiction has revolved around this place and my complicated feelings toward it: As much as I have always held a deep adoration of the land, I have also often felt somehow separate from it. Writing about Aroostook allowed me to discover my familiar world through different perspectives and to explore the ways such a secluded landscape can shape, inspire, unite, and limit the people who call it home.
–Shannon Bowring, Interview, The Washington Independent Review

Where the Forest Meets the River by Shannon Bowring

What booksellers are saying about Where the Forest Meets the River

  • I fell in love with this from the first chapter and beyond. WIth a different character narrating each chapter, you are all in, feeling like they are your neighbors. While everyone in Dalton is recovering from life trauma and in turn, trying to move forward the best they can you move with them as life takes them for a ride. Small towns can feel like they are strangling you but they can also make you feel right at home and loved. I can’t wait to go back and read her first book. Will make a great book club discussion. The town of Dalton is someplace I want to move to. If you love Elizabeth Berg, you will love Shannon Bowring. Having grown up in New England, I know these areas and people well and she gives them so much life.
      ― Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina | BUY

  • A lovely sequel to The Road to Dalton. I love the characters and the feel of the small town. A great read!
      ― Stephanie Crowe, Page & Palette in Fairhope, Alabama | BUY

  • I was so happy to have a sequel to The Road to Dalton; Shannon Bowring has such a unique talent for bringing people and places to life. Reading Where the Forest Meets the River and returning to Dalton reminds me of the feeling I had returning to my small hometown after the pandemic: I knew bad things had happened and things had changed, but I never should have doubted that life would continue and hope would prevail. This is the perfect series for anyone who enjoyed Fredrik Backman’s Beartown and is looking for another town to capture your heart.
      ― Beth Seufer Buss, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina | BUY

About Shannon Bowring

Shannon Bowring’s work has appeared in numerous journals and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. Her debut novel, The Road to Dalton, was chosen as one of NPR’s Books We Love in 2023. Where the Forest Meets the River is her second novel. She resides in Bath, Maine, and works at the Patten Free Library.

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The Trial of Anna Thalberg by Eduardo Sangarcía

The Trial of Anna Thalberg is a tiny little powerhouse of a novel. The plot is straightforward—a woman is accused of witchcraft in Reformation Germany, her husband and a priest going through a crisis of faith try to save her, their efforts are futile, and she is burned alive. But Sangarcía’s writing, composition, and tone are what makes this book really shine. Through innovative storytelling mechanics, complex emotional worlds, and frenetic, propulsive prose, Sangarcía paints a tragic, compelling portrait of isolation, ignorance, misogyny, fear, and the immutable nature of the human soul.

The Trial of Anna Thalberg by Eduardo Sangarcía, (List Price: $22, Restless Books, 9781632063731, September 2024)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Silken Gazelles by Jokha Alharthi

This shattered my poor heart into a million pieces. The third Alharthi novel I’ve read and now, my favorite. Easily the most insightful novel on female friendship of the decade. Perfect for Ferrante and Rooney fans, for anyone who’s lost a friend and searched for her in every shadow of their life. A haunting and dazzling story.

Silken Gazelles by Jokha Alharthi, (List Price: $27, Catapult, 9781646222070, August 2024)

Reviewed by Emily Tarr, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

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Spotlight On: The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

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Mai Mochizuki, photo credit priviat

In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. “The Full Moon Coffee Shop” is the name of a peculiar cafe that is run by talking cats, which has no fixed location and instead materializes unpredictably on the night of a full moon to people who need them. The inspiration for the original stories came when Mochizuki fell in love with Chihiro Sakurada’s illustrations when she saw them on social media. Already a best-selling series in Japan, The Full Moon Coffee Shop brings several of the series together in English for the first time.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

What booksellers are saying about The Full Moon Coffee Shop

  • These cats know a lot about astrology, and they’re here to help! The full moon coffee shop appears here and there, to this one and that one, and the talking cats that run the shop will read your stars to provide guidance. Each section deals with a different character that needs help in their life whether it’s at work, in their love life, or just gaining more self-confidence. This positive and life-affirming novel fits in well with the other translated Japanese works that have hooked me and created a “cat corner” on my reading list including The Cat Who Saved Books, The Travelling Cat Chronicles, and The Goodbye Cat.
      ― Alex Schulz from Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, KY | BUY

  • A cozy and musical slice-of-life with a whimsical coffee shop run by astrological cats who solve problems for a group of interconnected characters in their dreams… My God, this book is perfect.
      ― Andrew Preston from CoffeeTree Books in Morehead, KY | BUY

  • This was wonderfully refreshing! It’s a great read to uplift the soul. The only thing bad about this book is that I can’t eat the food in it!
      ― Sarah Dimaria from Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, LA | BUY

About Mai Mochizuki

Mai Mochizuki is the author of The Full Moon Coffee Shop and winner of the Everystar Ebook Grand Prix. She is a member of the Japan Mystery Writers Association and the Unconventional Mystery Writers Club.

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Spotlight On: Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

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Yoko Ogawa, photo credit Tadashi Okochi

Since childhood, reading has been more than just a hobby for me. You might say that I can’t find meaning in life without books. Since becoming a writer, I’ve had more occasion to read for work than for my own enjoyment, but I can’t say that has caused me any distress at all. Even if a book isn’t suited to my personal taste, there is always something to be gained by reading it, always some light that it will shed on my life from an unexpected angle.

― Yoko Ogawa, Interview, The New York Times

Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

What booksellers are saying about Mina’s Matchbox

  • I haven’t stopped thinking about these characters since I finished this book a week ago–each of them so wonderful and real. Ogawa has created a world replete with tenderness and wonder, tinged with melancholy but never subsumed by it. Mina and Tomoko’s friendship made me feel the thrill of childhood togetherness, that first sweetness of feeling totally safe with and understood by someone. It will be such a joy to recommend a book that centers happiness and belonging without a hint of schmaltz or cliche. And how could anyone resist a pygmy hippo named Pochoko?!
      ― Kristen Iskandrian from Thank You Books in Birmingham, AL | BUY

  • This episodic historical novel is beautifully contemplative and delightfully whimsical, a bejeweled time capsule of childhood tinged with grief and secrecy. A deftly captivating tale that will leave readers entranced.
      ― Hannah DeCamp from Avid Bookshop in Athens, GA | BUY

  • Slow and stepped in adolescent adventure and anguish, Mina’s Matchbox is an instant classic. Ogawa builds a whimsical world full of secrets that is impossible to put down.
      ― Alea Lopes from Oxford Exchange in Tampa, FL | BUY

  • A lovely, poignant jewel box of a novel, Mina’s Matchbox is a warm, earnest and moving meditation on and celebration of memory. In conversation with and counterpose to Ogawa’s earlier novel The Memory Police, Mina’s Matchbox explores the uniquely human textures and valences that construct our memories and how while we make memories, our memories also help make us. An antidote to so many contemporary stories, Mina’s Matchbox is a coming-of-age story that illuminates and coxes warmth out of that which makes us human.
      ― Matt Nixon from A Cappella Books in Atlanta, GA | BUY

About Yoko Ogawa

Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Her works include The Memory Police, The Diving Pool, a collection of three novellas; The Housekeeper and the Professor; Hotel Iris; and Revenge. She lives in Ashiya, Japan.

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I Don’t Care by Ágota Kristóf

What a freaky little book! A good intro to Kristof’s bleak humor and hyper-precise observations. Some stories have a charming O. Henry quality; others start weird and just get weirder. Recommended for anyone who needs to be shaken out of a mental torpor–like having icy water thrown onto your brain.

I Don’t Care by Ágota Kristóf, (List Price: $13.95, New Directions, 9780811235167, September 2024)

Reviewed by Kristen Iskandrian, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama

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