The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

Well, if The Year of Runaways isn’t a heart-breaking work of staggering genius, then I don’t know what is. To me, it was like a modern, immigrant follow-up to A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, which has long been one of my favorite books. 

The Magic of Saida by M.G. Vassanji

M.G. Vassanji has long been a favorite writer of mine. I’ve had The Magic of Saida sitting on my shelf for years now – it moved from Canada to Scotland with us – but it just hasn’t been calling to me. In fact, many of his more recent books haven’t hit me the way his earlier works did. So what did i think of The Magic of Saida?

Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell

I didn’t think I wanted to read Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell. Turns out I was wrong.  Not only did I read it, I really enjoyed it. It’s about two girls who were kidnapped and their lives 20 years later. Kidnapping tales aren’t really my thing because of the hundreds of troubling images that come to mind, but Pretty Is is different. Nothing bad really happens to the girls, I mean, aside from the obvious trauma of being kidnapped.

White Teeth b y Zadie Smith

Yes, at the urging of Andi at Estella’s Revenge I’m attempting to read more of my own damn books, and this one has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. I mean who hasn’t read White Teeth by Zadie Smith by now? And yes, it was just as great as I thought it would be. The cultural melting pot of London and all that. But, I am a Zadie Smith fan.

The Ecliptic by Benjamin Wood

Way back when, before this blog was born, I read Benjamin Wood‘s debut novel The Bellwether Revivals, and was dazzled by it. Seriously great with that Donna Tartt feel to it. So when The Ecliptic came out and was described as a mix of Donna Tartt and Patricia Highsmith, the only option open to me was to read it. The problem is those are mighty big shoes to fill and i wish I had never heard the comparisons.

The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer

I’ve been putting off reading The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer for a while because I was pretty sure I was going to love it and i did. It’s about a family of Sanskritists during the tumult of 1970s to present day India. That description hardly does the novel justice. It is, in fact, an epic exploration of the family, memory, trauma and how the past exists in the present.

Beautiful Country by J.R Thornton

I don’t think i realized Beautiful Country by J.R. Thornton was a YA title until I started reading it. It certainly wasn’t marketed as a YA read, but the tone and language gave it away immediately. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just that, as you know, i don’t go in for much YA.