Fresh and distinctive writing from an exciting new voice in fiction, Elmet is an unforgettable novel about family, as well as a beautiful meditation on landscape. [Winner of the Man Booker Prize, 2017] Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
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Books
Forgotten Things, Stephen Mullaney-Westwood
The beauty of the Cornish countryside… The innocence of childhood in the 1980’s… An ancient mystery not quite forgotten. Mullaney-Westwood’s first novel is a spiritual coming of age tale mixing haunting faery lore and a deep love for the natural world. Fairy tales are one thing…faeries, are another. ‘A magical […]
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The Whale Caller, Zakes Mda
As Zakes Mda’s fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale-watchers–foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp […]
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The Middle Earth Universe, J.R.R. Tolkien
This is the 600th book post made in the years I’ve run Dragonfly, and I wanted to make it special on this fifth anniversary. Perhaps this should have been my first post ever, but it took me a long time to come up with a standard for any sort of […]
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On a River’s Bank, A Madhavan
Unfortunately I cannot find this book at Goodreads yet, but the Hindu Business Line has an interesting article with the title: Unquiet Flows a River: The English translation of a famed 1974 Tamil novel lets a broader audience take in the ethos of a subaltern people in a fecund Dravidian […]
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Compulsory Games, Robert Aikman
Aickman’s superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the “void behind the face of order,” is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the […]
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The Vorrh Trilogy, Brian Catling
Click here for all, including The Vorrh and The Erstwhile. The richly grotesque Vorrh trilogy describes a quest to rescue the tree of knowledge and return Creation to a state of primal innocence. –The Guardian In the stunning conclusion to Brian Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, the colonial city of Essenwald gives […]
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In Search of Staria, Peagum Coleman
This is not only a book for aficionados of the journey and search genre of literature e.g. Lord of the Rings, but will also appeal to those who enjoy a cracking adventure story. It is very interesting to read how a disparate ethnic and genetic mix of people meld together […]
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Voice of the Elders, Greg Ripley
In the near future, the ravages of a warming planet have worsened, driving a new era of climate refugees. Rohini Haakonsen, a young Indian-American woman, attends a UN conference on the problem when humanoid aliens materialize. Known as the Elders, the aliens present themselves as benign, even offering to help […]
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The Books of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the timeless and beloved A Wizard of Earthsea —“…reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago,” (David Mitchell)—comes this complete omnibus edition of the entire Earthsea chronicles, including over fifty illustrations illuminating Le Guin’s vision of her classic saga. Goodreads Reviews Back […]
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No Place for Wolverines, Dave Butler
When Park Warden Jenny Willson initiates a covert inquiry into a proposed ski hill in Yoho National Park, she’s quickly drawn into a web of political, environmental, and criminal intrigue that threatens to tear apart a small B.C. town. Suddenly, neighbour is pitted against neighbour, friend against friend, and family […]
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Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that […]
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Djinn City, Saad Hossain
Indelbed is a lonely kid living in a crumbling mansion in the super dense, super chaotic third world capital of Bangladesh. When he learns that his dead mother was a djinn — more commonly known as a genie — and that his drunken loutish father is a sitting emissary to […]
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The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
Now here’s a classic that truly belongs in the collection at this site (originally published in 1957). Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs. […]
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The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the […]
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