agggregator

BOTTOM LINE: So powerful and so accurate. It brought back more memories than I had thought I had regarding my own life as a military spouse. Genre:  Literary Fiction Publication Date:  27 June 2017 Source: Publisher  via NetGalley Synopsis from the Publisher: “Both Cassie Hugo and Margaret Brickshaw dutifully followed their soldier husbands to the U.S. embassy in Jordan, but that’s about all the women have in common. After two years, Cassie’s become an expert on the rules, but newly arrived Margaret sees only her chance to explore. So when a fender-bender sends Margaret to the local police station, Cassie reluctantly agrees to watch Margaret’s toddler son. But as the hours pass, Cassie’s boredom and frustration turn to fear: Why isn’t Margaret answering her phone, and why is it taking so long to sort out a routine accident? Snooping around Margaret’s apartment, Cassie begins to question not only her friend’s whereabouts but also her own role in Margaret’s disappe...

Yesterday, ArabLit re-published Samira Negrouche’s “ Seven Little Jasmine Monologues ,” translated and championed by poet Marilyn Hacker. Today, a brief exchange with Negrouche about literature, translation, and collaboration: What brought you to writing the “Jasmine Monologues”? Has how you read your poem changed in the time since you wrote it? How does it read/feel to you in the English, vs. in the French? Samira Negrouche:  I think it happened when a trip to Cairo had to be canceled. I was invited for a seminar a few times before the main protests in Tahrir Square — it took a few weeks before it was clear this was totally canceled. During that time, all my attention went to what was happening in Tunis, Tripoli, Cairo, Damascus, Sanaa. I remembered every detail and every person I knew in each city: my last trip to Morocco during the February protests, the recent situation in my country, the images from the news… I wouldn’t say everything mixed up, but I had the feeling it was ...

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Summary: Fiona Davis’s stunning debut novel pulls readers into the lush world of New York City’s glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side by side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon’s glitzy past. When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren’t: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn’t belong—a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she’s introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that’s used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance. Over half a century later, the Bar...

As I was writing my thoughts (for your delectation soon) on the Wainwright shortlisted Where Poppies Blow The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War by John Lewis-Stempel, I remembered that one book had come to mind constantly throughout the chapter on horses. I eventually found the book, Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben, and then donning my overalls I braved the dusty blog cellar and found this post from 2008. Given that this was written nine years ago I'm hoping anyone who was reading here back then will have forgotten all about it, so I am bringing it back into the light of day because I think it's a book that deserves to be read. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't quite know where to start and it's not often I say that.It's taken me about a week to recover enough to write this. First up, I feel I need to seek complete absolution for never really liking horses that much and for ever linking them to tins of dog food. Now I'm h...