Book Recommendations
March 11, 2024
The Old Woman and the River (Adapted)
Ismail Fahad Ismail (Author) Sophia Vasalou (Translator)
After the ceasefire in 1988, the devastation to the landscape of Iraq wrought by the longest war of the twentieth century--the Iran-Iraq War--becomes visible. Eight years of fighting have turned nature upside down, with vast wastelands being left behind. In southeastern Iraq, along the shores of the Shatt al-Arab River, the groves of date palm trees have withered. No longer bearing fruit, their leaves have turned a bright yellow. There, Iraqi forces had blocked the entry points of the river's tributaries and streams, preventing water from flowing to the trees and vegetation. Yet, surveying this destruction from the sky, a strip of land bursting with green can be seen. Beginning from the Shatt al-Arab River and reaching to the fringes of the western desert, several kilometers wide, it appears as a lush oasis of some kind. The secret of this fertility, sustaining villages and remaining soldiers, is unclear. But it is said that one old woman is responsible for this lifeline.
From Electric Literature:
Um Qasem is somewhere near 60, widowed, a grandmother. At a glance, she’s neither a threat nor much of a boon to anyone. At the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 to 1988, her husband dies after the family is evacuated from a targeted area that includes their village. Um Qasem settles in to her new location. Her sons and their families quickly adjust and expect her to do the same. But resistance rises in her after a long time of feeling displaced.
With her donkey, Good Omen (a beautifully drawn character in his own right), Um Qasem sneaks away and travels across miles of military presence to return to her village, despite its off-limits status. Once there, she finds military-ordered dams have killed off much of the plant and amphibious animal life. The streams and ponds that once nourished the entire area are nearly dried up. Trees and flowers in the abandoned yards are dying.When soldiers discover Um Qasem, they see her as little more than a widow who needs protection; she must be removed from the area. But she has other ideas about what needs protecting A resourceful woman with a vision, she takes risks to free the water from the dams and restore life to her village, pushing herself beyond traditional expectations in the process.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Olga Tokarczuk (Author) Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator) Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator)
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
"A brilliant literary murder mystery." --Chicago Tribune
"Extraordinary. Tokarczuk's novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work." --Annie Proulx
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .
A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?
The Door
Magda Szabo (Author) Len Rix (Translator) Ali Smith (Introduction by)
One of The New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2015"
An NYRB Classics Original
The Door is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited, with an on-again-off-again relationship to Hungary's Communist authorities. Emerence is a peasant, illiterate, impassive, abrupt, seemingly ageless. She lives alone in a house that no one else may enter, not even her closest relatives. She is Magda's housekeeper and she has taken control over Magda's household, becoming indispensable to her. And Emerence, in her way, has come to depend on Magda. They share a kind of love--at least until Magda's long-sought success as a writer leads to a devastating revelation.
Len Rix's prizewinning translation of The Door at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.
The Summer Book
Tove Jansson (Author) Thomas Teal (Translator) Kathryn Davis (Introduction by)
In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer--its sunlight and storms--into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love. "On an island," thinks the grandmother, "everything is complete." In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life.
Tove Jansson, whose Moomintroll comic strip and books brought her international acclaim, lived for much of her life on an island like the one described in The Summer Book, and the work can be enjoyed as her closely observed journal of the sounds, sights, and feel of a summer spent in intimate contact with the natural world.
The Summer Book is translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal.
From Electric Literature:
This quiet and beautiful story of a grandmother and granddaughter exploring their world, a tiny island off the coast of Finland, is a classic. As the two go forth to converse, play together, appreciate and protect their island world, a tender closeness grows. But flares of tension ignite on these pages, too. The child’s mother has recently died.Tove Jansson was in her late 50s when she wrote this novel in which no real plot emerges and little happens: a miniature Venice gets created by the two companions, a couple of cats show up, each presenting challenges regarding the meaning of love, a friend visits and quickly becomes a problem; there’s weather and the sea and bobbing about in boats, and some other people doing things, too. But the real story that threads throughout this quiet and often funny book is one of connection and transition. This is not a children’s story.
It’s a surprise that the six-year old granddaughter is as much a caretaker of the grandmother’s life as the other way around. The grandmother can be as curious and mischievous as any child might be, while at the same time teaching tolerance of others’ beliefs and care for the natural world. She’s not the stereotypically accepting or sage grandmother, but a woman who realizes her life is coming to a close and she’s clear that’s her business.
Both the grandmother and granddaughter own themselves. Each has a memorable personality, and they are determined to freely express that personality with one another because here on the island and together, their love and their surroundings allow for great freedom. This is an honest book about a pair of unique individuals, mutually devoted.
The Woman Next Door
Yewande Omotoso (Author)
The U.S. debut of award-winning writer Yewande Omotoso, in which an unexpected friendship blossoms in contemporary Cape Town--and in a community where loving thy neighbor is easier said than done.
Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbors. One is black, the other white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed, and are living with questions, disappointments, and secrets that have brought them shame. And each has something that the woman next door deeply desires.
Sworn enemies, the two share a hedge and a deliberate hostility, which they maintain with a zeal that belies their age. But, one day, an unexpected event forces Hortensia and Marion together. As the physical barriers between them collapse, their bickering gradually softens into conversation and, gradually, the two discover common ground. But are these sparks of connection enough to ignite a friendship, or is it too late to expect these women to change?
A finalist for: International DUBLIN Literary Award-Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction-Barry Ronge Fiction Prize-Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize- University of Johannesburg Main Prize for South African Writing
Longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction-One of the Best Black Heritage Reads (EssenceMagazine)- One of NPR's Best Books of the Year-One ofPublishers Weekly's Writers to Watch.
From Electric Literature:
In post-apartheid Capetown, two next door neighbors in an upscale residential area are at odds. Both are old and widowed. Both have been successful in their careers. Marion (white) was an architect, and Hortensia (black) was a textile designer. They’ve felt antagonism toward one another for years. Marion has a history of racism and little self awareness. She has benefitted from all that apartheid offered its white residents. Hortensia moved to Capetown after marrying a white man, Peter, who betrayed her with another woman. Both Hortensia and Marion have been hurt by husbands who failed them.Even if you know nothing much at all about apartheid in South Africa, these two old women serve as guides into the chasm. Marion and Hortensia are alone and lonely; each judges the other and feels she must keep her distance going forward. But then fate hands each one a burden she cannot carry alone. They are next door neighbors. What can they do but look one another’s way for help?
The novel seems to threaten to swerve into a pleasing connection as an outcome, but Omotoso is too smart for this and doesn’t cheat. Instead, she works to take personalities, pain, ignorance and the reality of the past into account. She directs the intersection of their need for one another and their history with a firm hand as these women begin to stretch themselves into the possibility of building something new together.
Two Old Women [Anniversary Edition]: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival
Velma Wallis (Author)
"No one should miss this beautiful legend." --Tony Hillerman
Velma Wallis's award-winning, bestselling tale about two elderly Native American women who must fend for themselves during a harsh Alaskan winter
Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.
Though these women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple but vivid detail, Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community, and forgiveness "speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness, and wisdom" (Ursula K. Le Guin).
**This week’s recommendations are narratives taken directly from the bookseller.