The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik
I cannot get out. Something must have happened to the lock. That’s the first line of Hanne Ørstavik’s novel The Blue Room. Are you feeling…
Calling all unpublished novelists: here’s your break!
In February 2008, I was in despair. I’d given up a good job as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in…
The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov
How do you tell the story of a remote injustice to a jaded world? You could make a documentary, or interview the…
The Future of Books: Reactive?
How would you like to read a book that reacted to your emotions, and changed its storyline to give you exactly what…
What Sport Tells Us About Life by Ed Smith
As well as The Chinese Garden of Serenity, Vishy also sent me What Sport Tells Us About Life. Again, it was a thoughtful…
A Chinese Garden of Serenity by Hung Tzu-ch’eng
My friend Vishy gave me A Chinese Garden of Serenity for Christmas. It was such a nice surprise to open the package from India and…
Halcyon Days
The phrase “halcyon days” has always meant nothing more to me than general nostalgia. Since moving to Crete, and more particularly since…
A Story in Two Pictures
Look what my landlord brought home this morning… And then I saw this…
“Rogue” sociology?: Floating City by Sudhir Venkatesh
What a difference a title makes, or even a subtitle. The version I read, the US edition which I received as a…