This affecting, dimensional work centers on the power gained by losing oneself in the mythology of others. Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill: Englishmen, twentieth-century icons, and, in Austrian writer Michael Köhlmeier’s rich... Read More

He expertly ties individual stories into larger themes of Jordanian identity, without losing focus on his narratives. The late Tayseer al-Sboul was considered one of Jordan’s most respected writers, a poet and author with a knack for... Read More

Daring narrative styles and bursts of philosophy make the maybe-love story within "Two Green Otters" a fascinating trip. Buket Uzuner’s "Two Green Otters" is a story of love and ennui in which a mysterious protagonist struggles to... Read More

This novel is a masterful portrait of individuals who find solace where they can, and who endure through personal disillusionment. Ludmila Ulitskaya’s "The Kukotsky Enigma" is a generational saga and a defiant exploration of memory,... Read More

Things of Absolute Importance is an amusing work from a provocative author determined to challenge his audience. This is not a self-help book. The author, Haim Shapira, makes that clear from the beginning. Instead,"Happiness and Other... Read More

Chaucer’s classic stories are given new life in this accessible translation. Just like the hems of skirts that rise and fall with the current fad, many books are loved in their time before quietly being put to rest on dusty shelves.... Read More

The human dramas in Carousel reward the voyeur’s eye. A Brussels neighborhood is the site of a grand experiment in human connection, in Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s"The Carousel of Desire", an inventively gratifying libertine comedy of... Read More

A young boy imagines his life from a distance in this piercing story about escaping circumstances. Tangential, expansive in its ability to capture youth at a crossroads, and unexpectedly piercing, Eric Dupont’s "Life in the Court of... Read More