Search Results for: grief is the thing

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

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Western Lane

A debut novelist of brilliant promise

Longlisted for The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, and appearing on last year’s Booker shortlist, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo is a spare, tender novel of grief and loss, told from the viewpoint of bereaved 11-year-old Gopi in her unique search for resilience through the game of squash. Following the untimely death of her mother, Gopi’s struggling father has launched his three daughters into an intense regime at Western Lane sports centre. Here, on the squash court, Gopi will find space to breathe and contemplate a world of adult silences and the challenges of adolescence in a cross-cultural family.

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Orbital by Samantha Harvey

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Orbital

A profound meditation on our lonely planet

It’s a Tuesday morning in October, and hundred of kilometres above Earth, six astronauts snooze weightlessly in their sleeping bags. The uncleared paraphernalia of last night’s dinner sits in the galley, while beyond the spacecraft’s titanium shell, ‘the universe unfolds in simple eternities.’ In the beautiful Orbital by Samantha Harvey, we spend one day and sixteen orbits of the Earth in the astronauts’ company, as they reconcile their scientific objectives with existential contemplation and the insistent human buzz emanating from our lonely planet.

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A Moth to a Flame by Stig Dagerman

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A Moth to a Flame

Classic Swedish novel of grief and disorientation

A gem from the excellent Penguin European Writers series, A Moth to a Flame by Stig Dagerman is a magnificently moody read. Set in 1940’s Stockholm, it tells the tale of Bengt, a young man broken by the premature death of his mother. Discovering that his father had a secret lover throughout, the devastated Bengt plots vengeance, and in Dagerman’s astute portrayal of Bengt’s slide into existential crisis, we watch as he becomes embroiled in a demented affair with that very same mistress. Laced with sly humour, this novel of grief, loss and love is a provocative treat.

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A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

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A Single Man

Re-engaging with life

Film fans will remember fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut from a few years ago based on A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. As aesthetically pleasing that film was, nothing compares to the real thing: the book itself. The story of recently bereaved George, a 58-year-old Santa Monica based Englishman, struggling to fill the gaping hole left by the sudden death of his gay partner Jim, is absolutely exquisite. Written in 1964 and hailed as the first truly gay novel, this beautifully written, tightly conceived novel about re-discovering happiness is a joy to read.

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The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

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The Hero of This Book

Grief, memories and blurred lines

One Sunday in summer, a bereaved American writer wanders the streets of London, finding echoes and shadows of her dead mother in a city beloved to them both. The writer is our narrator and the book is most definitely not a memoir. Her mother didn’t believe in memoirs about parents, and anyhow the book’s blurb is keen to tell us that it’s a novel. In The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken, the lines between fiction and biography are blurred in a cerebral, generous and absorbing read.

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This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

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This One Sky Day

A lush and intoxicating read

Longlisted for The Women’s Prize 2022, This One Sky Day by Leone Ross is a wondrous affair, brimful of light and life. Set on the imaginary Caribbean archipelago of Popisho, a place where magic is perpetually afoot, it follows a momentous day in the life of its inhabitants. Unrest lurks in many forms, including meteorological, as the stories of a silver-fingered healer and ex-addict chef entwine in a magical realist novel of love and grief, dosed with a spike of political satire.

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The Promise by Damon Galgut

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The Promise

A must-read

It’s been a while since I read a novel this good. The Promise by Damon Galgut is the work of an author at the top of his game, in complete control of the narrative and the language. This multi-layered story is both gripping and quietly devastating. The crumbling of the Afrikaner Swart family, living in the shadows of South-Africa’s brutal history, deals with the personal and the political, in perfect balance. I haven’t read all the books on the Booker short-list yet, but this, for sure, is one that deserves to win.

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The Hungry Ghost by H.S. Norup

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The Hungry Ghost

8-11 years

A potent ghost story set under sultry Singaporean skies

It is the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar and in Singapore, The Hungry Ghost Festival is under way, a time when the gates to the underworld are flung open and the dead roam freely among us. In this new novel from the wonderfully globetrotting Pushkin Press, we’re transported there, along with troubled Danish schoolgirl, Freja. A reluctant new arrival into her dad’s second family, Freja is struggling to belong. She is far from being the only uneasy soul in The Hungry Ghost by H.S. Norup, an evocative exploration of family, memory and the nature of grief.

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Christmas 2020

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Books for Christmas 2020

I think we can all agree that 2020 hasn’t been the greatest year, but at least books, unlike theatre, cinema and exhibitions, have been available throughout. When you can’t go places, books can take you away. Here at Bookstoker we have been to a stormy Scottish loch, the poop deck of a 17th century tall ship, a senator’s mansion in Tennessee and the alehouses of 16th century Stratford-upon-Avon and many other places. As always, our annual Christmas list have fantastic fiction, interesting non-fiction, mind-bending poetry and loads of wonderful children’s books. So this year, more than ever, books really are the best gift. When you do buy them, please consider sacrificing the convenience and slightly lower prices of Amazon to make sure your local bookshop will still be there on the other side of Corona. Most local bookshops have good online or phone ordering systems now and if not Bookshop.org, an online bookshop supporting the local bookshop of your choice, is here to help.

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Hamnet by Maggie O' Farrell

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Hamnet

A triumphant tale of grief, love and motherhood

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell is O’Farrell’s take on ‘what might have happened’ around the death of Shakespeare’s only son Hamnet. It’s her first foray into historical fiction and an ambitious choice of subject matter, but she pulls it off triumphantly with this poignant tale of grief, love and motherhood.

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