Category Archives: Culture

Reading Well: The Book of Night Women by Marlon James

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

With The Book of Night Women (2009), we’ve now gone through Marlon James‘ entire corpus (see John Crow’s Devil, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and Black Leopard, Red Wolf). The Book of Night Women is the most explicit, direct, … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams

Posted on September 3, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The Illness Lesson (2020) is Clare Beams‘ debut novel. It is set in the final quarter of the nineteenth century in small-town New England. It’s a complex novel to summarize in typical Reading Well terms: at the most abstract, The … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Posted on June 17, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I stumbled across a list–I believe in The Washington Post–of fantasy novels written by women with an Arabic / Middle Eastern / Indian influence (and shame on the Post for lumping all of that together in a single Orientalist vision, … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Memorial by Bryan Washington

Posted on June 1, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Bryan Washington‘s second novel, Memorial (2020) is set in the same Houston as his debut, Lot (parts of Memorial are set in Tokyo as well). Less an ensemble piece than Lot, Memorial focuses on a single relationship between two young … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Maaza Mengiste‘s second novel, The Shadow King (2019), illuminates an oft-overlooked period in Ethiopian history, the occupation by Italian forces under Mussolini as part of fascist military activity in Africa in World War II. Mengiste tells this story through an … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Published in 2015 and translated into English in 2018, The Day the Sun Died is the story of what happens to village in China that is plunged into everlasting night and widespread, violent insomnia. Those afflicted initially wander aimlessly, with … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

Posted on December 18, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” was written by Zora Neale Hurston in the early 1930s, based on fieldwork done in the late 1920s. While parts of it appeared in different formats, it was never published a complete … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

{ A Washington Post story from way back in July led to my buying a few titles it mentioned–fantasy/sci fi by female Muslim authors. As always with such, it’s a bit of a crap shoot as to quality. } Ausma … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Overstory by Richard Powers

Posted on October 9, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

This is the 2nd book by Richard Powers I’ve read–a small number for such an acclaimed author, for sure. In hindsight his 2017 novel The Overstory is similar in some ways to the one I read and wrote about a … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami

Posted on September 20, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Originally published in 2003, Hiromi Kawakami‘s The Ten Loves of Nishino was translated into English for the first time in 2019. There is something very sweet about the novel, which follows the protagonist–Nishino of the title–through his life and, yes, … Continue reading →

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