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Reading Challenge A book in translation |
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When the cranes fly south
by Lisa Ridzén, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies
Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he's got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company, though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he's expressed his love over the years.
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A man called Ove
by Fredrik Backman, translated from the Swedish by Henning Koch
At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. Ove's well-ordered, solitary world gets a shake-up one morning when new neighbors accidently flatten Ove's mailbox. This is a tale of unkempt cats and unlikely friendships.
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We do not part : a novel
by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
As Kyungha braves a treacherous snowstorm on Jeju Island to save her injured friend’s pet, she unwittingly embarks on a journey that blurs reality and memory, uncovering a hidden chapter of Korean history and the enduring power of friendship amidst forgotten violence.
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The secret of snow
by Tina Harnesk, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies
Meet Mariddja: eccentric, eighty-five years old, and facing a cancer diagnosis. She's determined to keep the truth about her illness from her husband Biera, while also finding someone who can take care of him once she's gone. Meet Kaj: a new transplant to the village, recently engaged to Mimmi, and mourning the death of his mother. One day, when Kaj unexpectedly finds a box of Sami--the indigenous people of Scandinavia--handicrafts belonging to his mother, he unlocks something he never anticipated, something that will change his life for years to come.
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The shadow of the wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves
Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
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The girl with the dragon tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue. An unlikely team of investigators discovers a vein of iniquity running through one of the wealthiest families in Sweden and finds an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism.
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One hundred years of solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa
The story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love in a rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism."
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The city and its uncertain walls
by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
This novel from Haruki Murakami revisits a town his readers will remember, a place where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where our shadows become untethered from our selves. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times.
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The reader
by Bernhard Schlink, translated from the German by Carole Brown Janeway
This mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany.When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
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The Bird Singers : how two boys discovered the magic of birdsong
by Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse, translated from the French by Katia Grubisic
This captivating book brings together two birds of a feather: Jean and Johnny, boys from very different worlds growing up in a small village in France. Each year, over three hundred bird species visit their village, which intersects a major migratory flyway. The two boys' stories converge when Jean enters a bird-calling contest. He places second, and at only eleven years old becomes a child celebrity on the bird-calling circuit. Then Johnny starts to compete as well. At the annual bird festival, both boys are standouts, and a long, admiring rivalry develops between them, eventually culminating in the European championships. Their shared passion develops into an enduring partnership as performers, and they go on to tour the world in concert as the Bird Singers. This is a story as much about friendship as it is about birdsong
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The convenience store by the sea by Sonoko Machida, translated from the Japanese by Bruno NavaskyA quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko is full of hidden delights. And one unexpected treasure is the 24/7 convenience store, Tenderness. Sure, it's a bit odd that the incredibly handsome manager has his own fan club. And perhaps the customers are somewhat eccentric, if not entertaining. But there's a warmth about the store that draws you in. The truth is, Tenderness is different. Operating only in Kyushu, Tenderness stands firm and proud by its motto Caring for People, Caring for You, no matter the cause. And for Mitsuhiko, dishing out delicious food is simply the appetizer to his unsolicited but hearty wisdom on the town's shenanigans.
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Inner space
by Jakub Szamalek, translated from the Polish by Kasia Beresford
American and Russian astronauts are trapped together in the International Space Station as war breaks out in Ukraine and life support functions begin to fail in this action-packed debut technothriller that ripples with the tension and danger of Solaris and Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary.
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Good and evil and other stories
by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
Sculpted and lucid, strange and uncanny, here is a masterpiece of suggestiveness. Step by step these seven stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life - ourselves. Fantastical and subtly terrifying, these stories draw on magical realism, psychological fiction, and the dark side of fairy tales, inherited from literary predecessors like the Brothers Grimm and Jorge Luis Borges. Yet, far from antiquated or closed off, Schweblin's worlds invite us in, like quicksand or a strong river's current. These stories will insinuate themselves into your heart, and your bloodstream--
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The letter carrier : a novel
by Francesca Giannone, translated from the Italian by Elettra Pauletto
A woman arrives at a small Italian town in the 1930s, with her husband and baby, and is the permanent outsider. She decides to become the town postmistress, the first female to hold that position. An epic novel that spans decades.
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Discontent : a novel
by Beatriz Serrano, translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem
Marisa's life looks enviable, yet she's drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the expectations of corporate life. A dark, humorous, incisive tale of modern times, Discontent explores the unease we bury eight hours a day, and how explosive it is when it rises to the surface.
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Beasts of the sea
by Iida Turpeinen, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston
IIn 1741, naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller joins Captain Bering’s perilous expedition seeking a route from Asia to America. Though the mission fails, Steller documents a remarkable discovery—the gentle giant later named Steller’s sea cow.
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Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
| It's 1989, and in a small town on the Austria-Hungary border, nobody talks about the war; the older residents pretend not to remember, and the younger ones are too busy making plans to leave. The walls are thin, the curtains twitch, there is a face at every window, and everyone knows what they are not supposed to say. But as thousands of East German refugees mass at the border, it seems that the past is knocking on Darkenbloom's door. |
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The travelling cat chronicles
by Hiro Arikawa, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner Satoru as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe. With his crooked tail--a sign of good fortune--and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.
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A mask the color of the sky
by Bassem Khandaqj, translated from the Arabic by Addie Leak
Nur, a young Palestinian refugee from a camp near Ramallah, is often mistaken for an Ashkenazi Jew. Fluent in Hebrew and with a degree in archaeology, he dreams of freedom beyond the fences of the camp--and of writing a novel about Mary Magdalene based on the Gnostic Gospels. When he discovers an Israeli ID card in the pocket of a secondhand coat, he assumes a false identity and is hired for an archaeological dig near Megiddo. Passing as an Israeli, he moves through a world previously off-limits, gaining insight into the lives and beliefs of those he's been taught to see as enemies. But as Nur's borrowed identity deepens, so does the rift within: between Nur, the Palestinian, and Ur, the Israeli. By exploring this internal conflict, unfolding alongside friendships and love affairs, Bassem Khandaqji offers a meditation on the personal toll of occupation and the elusive desire to belong somewhere--fully, honestly, and without fear.
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The ferryman and his wife
by Frode Grytten, translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough
Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping onto his beloved boat. His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge--from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.
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