The Mediterranean Wall by Louis-Philippe Dalembert

Translator: Marjolijn De Jager This book entered my to-read queue when I was looking for serious almost-non-fiction picks. It sat on my virtual shelf for quite a while before I got to it. I have read a few others which were written on this topic, but many of the central figures who were refugees were…

Call Me Athena by Colby Cedar Smith

Narrated by Gail Shalan; Hope Newhouse; Ramiz Monsef As a person who usually prides herself in 'observing' things, I was pretty ashamed to find that I had not noticed the fact that this book was a novel in verse. I started listening to the audiobook and had some difficulty following the narrative because of the…

Twice upon a Time by LM Montgomery

My greatest bias as I approached this book was that Anne and her life were the first time I felt a thrill as I read. As a child who had been feeding on Famous Five and the like prior to finding these books, it was fun but not as emotionally rewarding as some of Anne's…

Honey & Spice by Bolu Babalola

Narrated by Weruche Opia  I started this book with no prior imagination of what I was going to get. The first thing that hit me was the narration. The lead protagonist is supposed to be a radio show host with a melodious voice that keeps the listeners hooked on the thing she says. The narrator…

Lifesaving for Beginners by Josie Lloyd

Narrated by Lucy Scott I started listening to this on a whim. It had a plotline that had the covid pandemic and the lockdowns in Britain in it, and as I have mentioned it earlier, I have been wondering how authors would be incorporating it into their plotlines. Although it has been two years since…

Careering by Daisy Buchanan

This was not my kind of book. The cover page led me a little astray, and I thought I'd be getting something different.The story is quite good in its way, but the style and the end result are not something I usually enjoy. The blurb does not talk about the kind of writing that our…

The Sentence by Louise Eldrich

It's hard to know how to present this book. It has so much in it. The emotion, the situations and the history bound in it is not that easy to unpack and talk about separately.For once, maybe I will begin with the story. The first quarter of the narrative introduces us to our lead protagonist,…

Two Truths and One Liar by Deirdre Riordan Hall

I have had good luck with more unknown books as well as ones which have a younger cast. I thought I would give this one a shot hoping for the trend to continue. That was not the case.This has a very interesting premise, and parts of the conclusion (or one of them) were actually quite…