Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Transit Books:<\/p>\n A woman moves to a London suburb near the River Lea, without knowing quite why or for how long. Over a series of long, solitary walks she reminisces about the rivers she has encountered during her life, from the Rhine, her childhood river, to the Saint Lawrence, and a stream in Tel Aviv. Filled with poignancy and poetic observation, River<\/i> is an ode to nature, edgelands, and the transience of all things human.<\/p>\n Paul reviewed the book for The Mookse and the Gripes here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Doubleday:<\/p>\n From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature’s most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad<\/i>, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.<\/p>\n The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman–Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war’s outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles’s concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.<\/p>\n When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis’s people, but also of the ancient world at large.<\/p>\n Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war–the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead–all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis’s perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker’s latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives–and it is nothing short of magnificent.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from NYRB Classics:<\/p>\n Fans of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary <\/i>will want to read this reimagination of one of literature’s most famous failures, Charles Bovary. Part fiction, part philosophy, Charles Bovary, Country Doctor<\/i> is also a book about love.<\/p>\n Jean Am\u00e9ry undertakes one of the most unusual projects in twentieth-century\u00a0literature: a novel-essay devoted to salvaging the poor bungler Charles Bovary from\u00a0the depredations of his creator, Gustave Flaubert. As a once-promising novelist\u00a0reduced to hack journalism for two decades after the Second World War, Am\u00e9ry\u00a0had a particular sympathy for failure, and Charles Bovary, Country Doctor <\/i>is his\u00a0phenomenology of the loser, blending fiction and philosophy to assert the moral\u00a0claims of the most famous, most risible cuckold in all of Western literature. Charles\u00a0tells his side, Am\u00e9ry vindicates Flaubert\u2019s hated bourgeoisie, and in the end, the\u00a0Master himself winds up in the docket, forced to account for the implausibility of\u00a0his own vaunted realism. At the same time, in Charles\u2019s words, Am\u00e9ry offers a moving\u00a0paean to the majesty of Emma Bovary herself, and to the supreme value of love.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from NYRB Classics:<\/p>\n Welcome to Moderan, world of the future. Here perpetual war is waged by furious masters fighting from Strongholds well stocked with \u201carsenals of fear,\u201d earth is covered with vast sheets of plastic, and humans vie to replace more and more of their own \u201csoft parts\u201d with steel machinery. What need is there for nature when trees and flowers can be pushed up through holes in the plastic? Who requires human companionship when new-metal mistresses can be ordered from the shop? But even a Stronghold master can doubt the catechism of Moderan. Wanderers, poets, and his own children pay visits, proving that another world is possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThe effect is as if Whitman and Nietzsche had collaborated,\u201d Brian Aldiss wrote of David R. Bunch\u2019s stories. Originally published in science-fiction magazines in the 1960s and \u201970s and passionately sought by collectors, the stories have not been available in a single volume for nearly fifty years, and this new edition of Moderan<\/i> will include ten previously-uncollected stories. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange<\/i>, and borrowing from the Bible and the language of advertising, Bunch coined a mind-bending new vocabulary. His intent was not to divert readers from the horrors of modernity but to make them face it squarely.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Farrer, Straus and Giroux:<\/p>\n Over the course of four dazzling novels translated into dozens of languages, Sj\u00f3n has earned a global reputation as one of the world\u2019s most interesting writers. But what the world has never been able to read is his great trilogy of novels, known collectively as CoDex 1962<\/i>\u00a0— now finally complete.<\/p>\n Josef L\u00f6we, the narrator, was born in 1962 — the same year, the same moment even, as Sj\u00f3n. Josef\u2019s story, however, stretches back decades in the form of Leo L\u00f6we — a Jewish fugitive during World War II who has an affair with a maid in a German inn; together, they form a baby from a piece of clay. If the first volume is a love story, the second is a crime story: L\u00f6we arrives in Iceland with the clay-baby inside a hatbox, only to be embroiled in a murder mystery — but by the end of the volume, his clay son has come to life. And in the final volume, set in present-day Reykjav\u00edk, Josef\u2019s story becomes science fiction as he crosses paths with the outlandish CEO of a biotech company (based closely on reality) who brings the story of genetics and genesis full circle. But the future, according to Sj\u00f3n, is not so dark as it seems.<\/p>\n In CoDex 1962<\/i>, Sj\u00f3n has woven ancient and modern material and folklore and cosmic myths into a singular masterpiece?encompassing genre fiction, theology, expressionist film, comic strips, fortean studies, genetics, and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Knopf:<\/p>\n George Washington Black, or “Wash,” an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master’s brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning–and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. What brings Christopher and Wash together will tear them apart, propelling Wash even further across the globe in search of his true self. From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black<\/i>tells a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again, and asks the question, What is true freedom?<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Archipelago Books:<\/p>\n The final installment in the long awaited, internationally celebrated My Struggle<\/i> series.<\/p>\n The full scope and achievement of Knausgaard’s monumental work is evident in this final installment of his My Struggle <\/i>series. Grappling directly with the consequences of Knausgaard’s transgressive blurring of public and private Book Six is a troubling and engrossing look into the mind of one of the most exciting artists of our time. Knausgaard includes a long essay on Hitler and Mein Kampf<\/i>, particularly relevant (if not prescient) in our current global climate of ascending dictatorships.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from The Library of America<\/p>\n Here, for the first time, in a newly-prepared authoritative text, Madeleine L’Engle’s iconic classic\u00a0A Wrinkle in Time<\/i>, one of the most beloved and influential novels for young readers ever written, is presented with all seven of its sequels–what L’Engle called the Kairos (or “cosmic time”) novels–in a deluxe two-volume boxed set, complete with never-before-seen deleted passages from\u00a0A Wrinkle in Time<\/i>. L’Engle’s unforgettable heroine, Meg Murry, must confront her fears and self-doubt to rescue her scientist father, who has been experimenting with mysterious tesseracts capable of bending the very fabric of space and time. Helping her are her little brother Charles Wallace and her friend Calvin O’Keefe, and a trio of strange supernatural visitors called Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which. But\u00a0A Wrinkle in Time<\/i>\u00a0was only the beginning of the adventure.<\/p>\n In\u00a0A Wind in the Door<\/i>, Meg and Calvin descend into the microverse to save Charles Wallace from beings called Echthroi, who are trying to erase existence. In\u00a0A Swiftly Tilting Planet<\/i>, when a madman threatens nuclear war, Charles Wallace must save the future by traveling into the past. And in\u00a0Many Waters<\/i>, Meg’s twin brothers are accidentally transported back to the time of Noah’s ark. The final four books center on Calvin and Meg’s daughter Polly. In\u00a0The Arm of the Starfish<\/i>, Polly disappears, and Calvin’s research assistant is implicated in her kidnapping. In\u00a0Dragons in the Waters<\/i>, Polly and her brother Charles are on a ship sailing to Venezuela when they help solve a murder connected to a stolen portrait of Simon Bolivar. Polly receives an education in different kinds of love in\u00a0A House Like a Lotus<\/i>. And in\u00a0An Acceptable Time<\/i>, Polly is lured through a tesseract by a friend who may be hoping to sacrifice Polly in order to save himself.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Open Letter Books:<\/p>\n In the midst of the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, Dubravka Ugresic — winner of the 2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature — was invited to Middletown, Connecticut as a guest lecturer. A world away from the brutal sieges of Sarajevo and the nationalist rhetoric of Milo\u0161evi?, she instead has to cope with everyday life in America, where she’s assaulted by “strong personalities,” the cult of the body, endless amounts of jogging and exercise, bagels, and an obsession with public confession. Organized as a fictional dictionary, these early essays of Ugresic’s (revised and amended for this edition) allow us to see American culture through the eyes of a woman whose country is being destroyed by war, and forces us to see through the comforting veil of Western consumerism.<\/p>\n Buy from Amazon.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is the blurb from Little, Brown and Company:<\/p>\n In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/River.jpg?resize=295%2C450\")
River<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Esther Kinsky
\ntranslated from the German by Iaian Galbraith (2018)
\nTransit Books<\/p>\n![\"Pat](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The-Silence-of-the-Girls.jpg?resize=298%2C450\")
The Silence of the Girls<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Pat Barker
\nDoubleday<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Charles-Bovary.jpg?resize=281%2C450\")
Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: Portrait of a Simple Man<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Jean Am\u00e9ry
\ntranslated from the German by Adrian Nathan West
\nNYRB Classics<\/p>\n
\nSeptember 11<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Moderan.jpg?resize=281%2C450\")
Moderan
\n<\/strong><\/em>by David R. Bunch
\nNYRB Classics<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CoDex-1962.jpg?resize=294%2C450\")
CoDex 1962: A Trilogy<\/i><\/strong>
\nby Sj\u00f3n
\ntranslated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
\nFarrer, Straus and Giroux<\/p>\n
\nSeptember 18<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Washington-Black.jpg?resize=304%2C450\")
Washington Black<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Esi Edugyan
\nKnopf<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/My-Struggle-Book-6.jpg?resize=370%2C450\")
My Struggle: Book Six<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Karl Ove Knausgaard
\ntranslated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Martin Aitken
\nArchipelago Books<\/p>\n
\nSeptember 25<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Kairos-Novels.jpg?resize=346%2C450\")
Madeleine L’Engle: The Kairos Novels: A Wrinkle in Time and Polly O’Keefe Quartets<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Madeleine L’Engle
\nThe Library of America<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/American-Fictionary.jpg?resize=291%2C450\")
American Fictionary<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Dubravka Ugresic
\ntranslated from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth and Ellen Elias-Bursac
\nOpen Letter Books<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Transcription.jpg?resize=291%2C450\"){kind=spacer}
Transcription<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Kate Atkinson
\nLittle, Brown and Company<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/The-Shape-of-Ruins.jpg?resize=296%2C450\")
The\u00a0Shape of Ruins<\/i><\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/The-Order-of-the-Day.jpg?resize=312%2C450\")
The Order of\u00a0the Day