Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night, Sudhir Hazareesingh’s Daring to Be Free, and Matthew Pearl’s The Award all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
1. House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk
(Riverhead)
7 Rave • 2 Positive
“It is a mesmerising showcase of Tokarczuk’s skills at blending a scrupulous attentiveness to the most humdrum detail of village life in rural Poland with startling forays into the realms of the uncanny … She opts for a form of writing which draws the reader in by obsessively circling around certain themes—loss, obsession, enchantment, inconstancy—that gradually take on meaningful shapes in the reader’s consciousness … The craft equivalent of Tokarczuk’s style is the art of the mosaic, the separate stones of beautifully executed microhistories that are carefully placed to make up larger patterns of significance … Her trusted intermediary, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, is the best accomplice Tokarczuk could have wished for in another triumph of the translator’s art.”
–Michael Cronin (The Irish Times)
2. The Award by Matthew Pearl
(Harper)
2 Rave • 5 Positive
“Cleverly plotted …. Pearl’s specific target is the rarified fortress of literary publishing, but the questions he raises extend well beyond its battlements.”
–Julia M. Klein (The Boston Globe)
3. Casanova 20: Or, Hot World by Davey Davis
(Catapult)
1 Rave • 2 Mixed
“A rare gem of a book—afraid of neither joy nor sorrow and patient enough to find the human heart inside all its gorgeous language. A show-stopping novel that carries within it a quiet, steadfast heart.”
**
1. Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World by Sudhir Hazareesingh
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
6 Rave • 1 Positive
“Sweeping … Studded with novelistic vignettes of insurrection, it doubles as a brisk history of Atlantic slavery … Hazareesingh’s book succeeds on the strength of its remarkable cache of evidence.”
–Pratinav Anil (The Times)
2. The Six Loves of James I by Gareth Russell
(Atria Books)
3 Rave • 3 Positive
“A highly entertaining, gossipy, but polished biography about James I, his personality, sexuality, and philosophy as ruler, plus the political intrigue involved in his accession to the throne.”
–Lucy Heckman (Library Journal)
3. Frostlines: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arctic by Neil Shea
(Ecco)
2 Rave • 2 Positive
“Shea brings the Arctic to stunning, awe-inspiring life, offering readers a richly detailed, up-close look at the ways in which climate change is transforming the region and the people and animals who call it home … It’s an enlightening, inspiring read.”
–Linda M. Castellitto (BookPage)
