When I visit other countries, I always try to seek out a bookstore. My purchases are usually but not always tied to the place. Years ago in London, I discovered Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, while in Amsterdam I bought a copy of the sci-fi novel The Book of Strange New Things by Dutch-born writer Michel Faber, and in New Zealand, I found An Angel at My Table, an autobiography by one of that country's most famous writers, Janet Frame. On my vacation to Sweden last summer, I

A few months ago, I wrote about my happy discovery of the first installment in the planned seven-book series On the Calculation of Volume. This inventive novel explores the idea of being trapped in time, living the same day over and over. What especially piqued my interest is that this ceaseless day – November 18th – also happens to be my birthday. On the Calculation of Volume, written by Danish author Solvej Balle and beautifully translated by Barbara Haveland, is hard to ca

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Vladimir Nabokov’s century-old novel Mary and the futility of trying to relive the past. I didn’t plan for this next book to cover similar ground, but the obsession with memory also underpins Brit Bennett’s The Mothers, a contemporary novel set in Southern California. Both stories hinge on a teenage love affair that echoes into adulthood. In each book, it’s clear that the past cannot be recreated. Yet The Mothers, published in 2016, is alt

Ever since I read The Hebrew Teacher, the first book translated into English by the US-based, Israeli-born writer Maya Arad, I have been eagerly anticipating the publication of her next book in English. The Hebrew Teacher is a collection of three novellas, all centered around Israeli transplants in America and the complicated bonds they have with one another and their homeland. The title story takes place at a college in the Midwest, and the other two are set in Northern Cali