Villoro is not for the casual reader but for those who are interested in a deeply complex yet personal social history of Mexico City. The book serves as a nice complement to The Mexico City Reader (2004).
The subject matter provides a rare view into Japan, but the lack of transitions makes the three sections feel isolated, and the last section of the book will only appeal to those who want exhaustive reporting on Japan’s nuclear power industry. Purchase where there is interest.
Two forthcoming collections is this series focusing on the postwar era (1945–2000) and essays of the 21st century will ensure this is the most comprehensive set of American essay writing to date. For readers fascinated by the sheer scope, variety, and art of the essay.
Exploring motherhood and personal relationships as well as the chaotic upheavals in revolutionary Tehran, this debut offers a powerful lead character in Aria. But its minor characters are just as memorable, with the narrative revealing how their circumstances have shaped their personalities. Highly recommended, especially for book groups.
A Granta Best of Young British Novelists, Wyld (All the Birds, Singing) has proved herself in the past, but there’s a patchiness to the multiple strands of her current work, as past and present mix with vignettes about ghosts, rape and murder. In the end, the parts of this chilling novel—particularly the “Masterpiece Theatre” paced postwar story
Dorian evokes Chaney’s personality in richly detailed scenes made even more impressive by the fact that an introductory note stresses that his subject’s extreme aversion to divulging details of his private life necessitated that this be “an imagined biography…inspired by real events and research.”
Set partly in the astonishing Coronavirus/George Floyd present and partly in the World War I era of Resistance France and prison-camp England, Smith’s latest is suffused with the warmth of a more hopeful future and brings her quartet to a satisfying conclusion.