Book Box | A browsing list of eight new and notable books
Here's a round-up of recent reads, a mix of genres that includes the latest Amor Towles and the forthcoming Matt Haig.
Dear Reader,
This week, I have a browsing list of eight new and notable books for you. It’s a mix of genres that includes the latest Amor Towles and the forthcoming Matt Haig.
Book 1 of 8: The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo: One of my more unusual reads of the year, I loved this book set in the wintery world of Manchuria. It’s the story of a mysterious woman called Snow, who goes on a hunt for the man who killed her child. Snow is a fox wife, there are other fox protagonists too, who take on the form of people, and these are fascinating in how they beguile humans into falling in love with them, and unbelievably clever in their insightful perspectives on human nature. It sounds far-fetched as I tell it, but when you read the book, it all feels perfectly natural. The magic and folklore meld perfectly into the landscape of this novel. There’s an interwoven thread as well, with aged detective Bao, who looks back on his life as he looks for Snow. The action moves slowly, it’s a different style of storytelling, gentle and so immersive that I didn’t want it to end. Five stars from me for this one.
Book 2 of 8: Table for Two by Amor Towles: For Amor Towles fans who have been waiting to begin his latest book, don’t be discouraged by the slow start of the stories in the first section. As soon as you get to part 2, the action gathers momentum, moving from New York to Los Angeles, with a mystery blonde, a retired homicide detective, a retired star and a young chauffeur who get together with the kind of vibe you find in the web series Only Murders in the Building. The detective and the star remind you of A Gentleman in Moscow and the story has the warmth and quirkiness of Lincoln Highway. And the mystery blonde is Evelyn Ross, a character from Amor Towles's New York novel Rules of Civility. 4.5 stars and recommended.
Book 3 of 8: Of Mothers and Other Perishables by Radhika Oberoi: A dead mother watches over the young family she left behind in this breathtaking book. She wanders wraith-like among the tissue-wrapped Banarasi sarees in her storeroom, watching her advertising executive daughter and her coffee shop startup founder daughter growing up. The story moves back and forth from the mother and her memories to scenes of modern India: to the elder daughter in a misogynistic advertising firm, and later in a protest against a citizenship bill that turns violent. Author Radhika Oberoi lost her mother when she was just fifteen. Perhaps, it is the potency of this personal experience that gives her writing of grief such intense immediacy; I found myself slowing down my reading of this book, to reflect and absorb the energy and the emotion, and take in the poetry of its prose. It made me think about other books where the narrator is a ghost-like figure, similar to the dark and disturbing Beloved by Toni Morrison and the tear-inducing Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. 4.5 stars and recommended.
Book 4 of 8: The Gallery by Manju Kapur: An absorbing story of two families in Delhi. There’s well-to-do Minal Sahni and her lawyer husband, and their Nepalese domestic help Krisha and Maitrye. Both families have a baby girl the same age, and the plot follows the setting up of Minal’s art gallery and the growing up of these two girls, one rich and the other poor. Manju Kapoor’s prose flows, and the story unfolds with a few twists and turns. A pleasant read. It was published last year, but I only got to it recently. 4 stars and recommended it.
Book 5 of 8: The Trial by Rob Rinder: A John Grisham kind of thriller, set in Old Bailey in London. It’s racy, pacy and fun while it lasts, and then two weeks later, you forget the story altogether. 4 stars and the perfect airplane read.
Book 6 of 8: The Life Impossible by Matt Haig: If you found The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho too pared down, you might find this one more to your taste. The book begins with a retired maths teacher, who is a grieving widow and a bereaved mother, suddenly receiving an inheritance of a house in Ibiza. This is her inciting incident upon which she sets aside her staid and sorrowful self, and travels to the island. Here she discovers that Christina, the friend who has left her the house, has died in suspicious circumstances, which she starts to investigate. What follows is a mish-mash of spirituality, environmental protests (an island outcrop off Ibiza is being made into a commercial property), socialism (the five-star Ibiza versus the real people on the island), and so-called science (the energy of the photons transferring to give people miraculous mind reading and future seeing abilities). Something for everybody plus a sprinkling of inspiring pop psychology lines for life and living. This book is on pre-order, releasing later this month. Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy. 4 stars.
Book 7 of 8: The Matrimonial Murder Mystery by Meeti Shroff-Shah: With all the buzz about the reality television show Indian Matchmaking and its Sima aunty, reading about a murder in a matrimonial bureau seemed inviting. This marriage bureau is in snobby South Mumbai, there was also the promise of all sorts of social satire to spice up the murder investigation. To be fair, this book does deliver on these social critiques. But early on, I found myself put off. The dialogue felt flabby, and the prose cliched with descriptions of girls whose ‘eyes widened with innocence’ and an instant later blushed with ‘blood rushing to their faces’. Then there was the painfully slow pacing. But if you are not one for these nitpicks, it's a nice enough read. 3 stars.
Book 8 of 8: Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors: The Little Women trope of four sisters is back. Last year was Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, which I loved. Blue Sisters, by contrast, feels dark and disturbing, with its drug addiction, dysfunction and death. The writing style doesn’t help. Here’s a typical sentence: "Given her commitment to radical self-determination, it wasn't at all surprising that Freja left before graduating to join an anarchic, non-hierarchical, consensus-driven community in Northern California, though with her ethos of independence above all, Avery imagined she might struggle with the consensus part." Not my kind of book. 3 stars.
In other book news of the week, the Booker Prize longlist is out, with novels that take you everywhere from historical settings to outer space. Astronauts survey the Earth in Orbital, two friends look back at life in Libya in My Friends, the lives of eight women boxers are featured in Headshot, there’s a retelling of Huckleberry Finn in James and a French Algerian family saga in This Strange Eventful History, and these are just a few of the 13 novels on the long list. We are spoiled for choice!
Until next week then, happy reading!
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
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