In Muriel Barbery’s bewitching "A Strange Country", elves and humans cross the boundaries that separate their lands, hoping to correct a travesty that’s playing out in the “theater of worlds.” In a land of mists, an unusual elf... Read More

Chronicling one generation of a hardscrabble island family’s life, Roy Jacobsen’s novel "The Unseen" is a pearlescent tribute to the alchemy of the sea. Ingrid, a bright-eyed child whose laughter is her family’s solace, is born on... Read More

Self-identity, status, and gender are at the core of Girls Lost, Jessica Schiefauer’s bold and compelling story in which three teenage girls who are social outcasts transcend boundaries by temporarily transforming into boys. Kim, the... Read More

Nino Haratischvili’s multigenerational Georgian novel "The Eighth Life" spans the years between the Bolshevik Revolution and the early twenty-first century. It all begins with a master chocolatier and a magical hot chocolate recipe for... Read More

Malaysian Chinese author Ho Sok Fong writes from the point of view of the dispossessed and downtrodden. Her striking short story collection "Lake Like a Mirror" unveils a lesser-known side of Malaysia, wherein minority women struggle to... Read More

At the opening of Esther Gerritsen’s Roxy, twenty-seven-year-old Roxy, a famous novelist and former tabloid fodder, learns that her husband has died. What follows is her unraveling. Introspective as it traces Roxy’s tragic fall, the... Read More

A suspect’s hobby, an overheard word, and a bottle cap knocked eschew: everything is a clue in Riku Onda’s riveting novel "The Aosawa Murders", whose terrible central crime cannot be solved too many times. Some cases capture the... Read More

The two girls central to Kim Sagwa’s haunting "b, Book, and Me" face bullying, their parents’ indifference, and a sense of helpless displacement. Teachers pretend not to notice what happens to Rang and b, averting their eyes or... Read More