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How Far Will You Go to Feel Intense Emotion?
Zack Hara, the narrator of Todd Shimoda’s gorgeously-produced new novel, Oh!, can’t feel intense emotion. He’s left Los Angeles behind, and gone to live in Japan and teach English conversation. One...
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“Try to Find the Thrill in Sound Judgment!”
Some months the stress is worse than others. Some months are easy. I know exactly what book will be ideal for the University Book Store’s book club. Other months aren’t so easy. Like this month. For...
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Here Comes Faiza Guene — Got a Problem with That?
Her voice is intoxicating. It’s like no one else writing. She’s tough, honest, and angry as a bull in the ring – but though the odds are stacked against Faiza Guene’s twenty-five-year-old heroine,...
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A Thrilling, Chilling New Novel from Finland
The problem with Elina Hirvonen’s When I Forgot is finding a place to stop. The narrative of this slender, lightning-fast Finnish novel, the most internationally successful debut novel in Finnish...
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Why Am I Reading This? Why Can’t I Stop?
I swore I’d never read another ghost story. Since 9/11, actually, I notice that I only read realistic fiction. Fantasy no longer interests me. And I certainly don’t have time to be reading novels...
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Go with Doctors Without Borders into War-Torn Afghanistan
In fifty years of reading, I don’t remember ever encountering a book quite like The Photographer. Which is why I’m choosing it as the June book club selection for the University Book Store in...
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Challenging New Colombian Novel about Exiled Germans
The Informers might be a little too much for a book club. It’s a new novel from Colombia by Juan Gabriel Vasquez coming out this August, and no one could say it was effortless reading. It takes a bit...
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Do Prostitutes Exist in Islamic Cairo?
A thirty-year-old Swiss author obsessed with finding prostitutes in Egypt goes on several uncomfortable searches through the sexually-repressed, Islamic city of Cairo in Florian Zeller’s short French...
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The Good Ones Are Always the Hardest
A half hour into our first discussion this month at the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club, I could see I was in trouble. I like this book too much. So does everyone else. Those are not the ingredients...
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Farewell Blog
This will be my last blog on Book Group Buzz. After 126 blogs and a year and a half discussing book clubs, I want to thank everyone who responded or questioned or commented on my various reading group...
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