To Paradise (Kindle Edition)
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Picador
This brilliant novel spanning three centuries is set in America, where people are free to love who they want. The idea of love, family values, loss, and the constant struggle to be in a utopia. But the truth is that we are living in a dystopian society. The young scion of an illustrious family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor and is instead attracted to a charming music teacher. In 1993 Manhattan, which is reeling under the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his older, wealthier partner. He is hiding his tormenting childhood. While in 2093, in a world riddled with plagues and totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to live life without him. The three sections are interwoven most thrillingly and intricately with characters that make us relook at fear, love, loneliness, and our priorities in life.
Glory
Author: NoViolet Bulawayo
Publisher: Vintage Digital
Glory is an awe-inspiring fable set in the animal kingdom of Jidada. Bulawayo tells the story of a country trapped in a cycle as old as time. And yet, as it unveils the myriad tricks required to uphold the illusion of absolute power. It reminds us that tyranny lasts only as long as the victims are willing to put up with it. It is a fairy tale with enough carrots and sticks dangling all over. The writer intelligently satirizes the 2017 coup that toppled Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Bulawayo has elucidated how Glory began its life as a non-fiction account of this history. With a sharp sense of humour and thought-provoking writing, Glory symbolically uses various animals to explain her points on the rich cultural and social interaction of Zimbabwe society and the global clamour.
Olga Dies Dreaming
Author: Xochitl Gonzalez
Publisher: Fleet
Don’t be surprised if this book hits the big screen. Xochitl’s debut novel dwells upon the ups and downs of Prieto, a Congressman, and his sister Olga, the wedding planner. Both struggled in their early ages and now they’re in their forties. The siblings were orphaned after their father’s death as their mother Blanca abandons them. However, the letters they keep receiving from their mother take the story forward. The powerful letters are a mix of motivation and convincing. Despite their public persona, the lives of Olga and Prieto behind closed doors are a bit messy. Olga finally finds love in Matteo, who helps her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, this novel brings to the surface the political corruption, familial strife, and the very notion of the American dream.
Sea of Tranquility
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Publisher: Picador
It’s a plain joy to stay immersed in the waters of St John Mandel's imagination. Long after you finish reading the novel, you float in the idea of parallel worlds and possibilities, that play with the very line along which time should run. Edwin St. Andrew is a teenager when he crosses the Atlantic by a steamship, exiled from polite society following a brawl at a dinner party. Edwin is lost in the beauty of the Canadian wilderness when suddenly he hears notes of a violin. Two centuries later writer Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. The writer beautifully manages to weave in the past, the present, and the future through her incredible style and what we must do to survive.
Where the Sun Never Sets
Author: Stuti Changle
Publisher: Penguin Ebury Press
Set amid the COVID-19 lockdown from the national bestselling author, Changle’s Where the Sun Never Sets is a gripping personal account of childhood dreams, tumultuous teenage years, complicated relationships, human resilience, and the never-ending journey of growing up. We have all maintained a personal diary at some point in our lives, but how many of us dare to open, read and go through the gamut of emotions all over again. In this much-awaited novel, Iti is forced to move back to her hometown of Mussoorie amid the pandemic lockdown to work on her first movie script. Memories flood after she bumps into her first love, Nishit, meets her estranged best pal, Shelly, and spends the nights reading her well-kept diary. Iti has always run away from her past, but this time has no choice. Changle is known for her simple prose and memorable characters. Will reading the diary work wonders for Iti? Well, one can’t wait to leaf through the pages of her life.
