Best Books I Read in 2021
In another difficult year, books once again brought me solace. Here's a roundup of my best books of 2021 (these are the best books I read this year, not the best ones that were published this year).
Borges Marathon, Part 5: The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan
As with many Borges stories, the line between fact and fiction in this story is unclear. So why does Borges make these alterations?
An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire
An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire is an Australian crime novel that throws the crime-writing conventions out of the window. It's more about male violence and sexual aggression than about solving the murder with which it starts.
The American Way: Stories of Invasion
This new short story collection by Comma Press focuses on what the American Way looks like to those at the sharp end of US aggression around the world.
The Truth About Amritsar
Why did British troops massacre hundreds of Indian civilians at Amritsar in 1919? This book explores the whole shocking story.
Digging to America by Anne Tyler: Review
In Digging to America, Tyler charts the course of two mismatched families, the hale and hearty, all-American Donaldsons and the quieter, more reticent Iranian-American Yazdans. All they have in common is that they both adopted babies from Korea at the…
Borges Marathon, Part 4: Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities
Why does this short story by Jorge Luis Borges create such power? Maybe it's the human frailty underlying the tale of a tough New York gangster.
Crimson by Niviaq Korneliussen
Five chapters. Five narrators. Five different experiences of being young Greenlanders trying to navigate the complex territory of gender and sexual identity. That's the basic setup of Crimson by Niviaq Korneliussen, a compelling novel first written and published in Greenlandic…
The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke by Tina Makereti
Set in Aotearoa and London some time in the 19th century, Tina Makereti's excellent novel tells the story of a Maori boy who makes his way to London, where he is exhibited in an artist's show. But he soon begins…