The story "A Riot of Goldfish," traces Mataichi, the son of a goldfish breeder, through his lifelong struggles with his unrequited love for the daughter of the family's patron. He loves Masako, but she loves goldfish.
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Just as a good Danish pastry consists of layer upon layer upon layer of rich pastry, so The Body in the Clouds is formed from layers of rich storytelling. In her first novel, shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book, Ashley Hay takes one moment in history and tells three different stories.
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In the beginning was nothing, and this nothing had neither form nor substance—it was nothing other than what it was. So begins this autobiographical novel of the author's first three years of life, which was originally published as "Métaphysique des Tubes" ("The Metaphysics of Tubes") in 2000, and released in English translation with a far less apt title two years later.
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Exile can be defined as the enforced or self-imposed departure from your native country for a period of time, maybe forever; think of Romeo's banishment from Verona, or Napoleon's exile to Elba. Edna O'Brien has been in self-imposed exile in London since the 1950s …
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We all know that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But the cover of this new edition of the 1966 Japanese novella The Doctor's Wife tempted me to do just that. It is bright red, wrapped in forest green, adorned with the soft-focus image of a woman in a simple orange obi, no doubt the doctor's wife herself. Small enough to tuck into the hand, the book's design is both restrained and dramatic, like the story itself.
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