Rating: 7.8/10. Work of Icelandic literature that won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, the novel focuses on a farmer named Bjartur and his quest for “independence,” which he defines as being free from debts and obligations to anyone else. The novel describes Bjartur’s life as a sheep farmer in the harsh Icelandic landscape,…
Category: Novels / Fiction
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rating: 8.2/10. Historical novel by a Peruvian novelist about Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic for 31 years from 1930 to 1961. The book is largely based on true historical events and includes many real historical figures, but also introduces some fictional characters and events. These never conflict with what might have actually…
The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama
Rating: 7.8/10. A historical novel set in Hilo, Hawaii in 1935 and centers around the Japanese community there. The story follows Daniel, a young doctor who returns after a brief trip to the mainland United States. There is not much of a plot, rather the book mostly revolves around Daniel rediscovering his family’s past and…
This is Paradise by Kristiana Kahakauwila
Rating: 7.9/10. A set of 6 short stories that take place in modern Hawaii. The people in each story are different, but all of them depict struggles, sadness, and despair, aiming to dispel the myth that Hawaii is a paradise. These stories showcase the everyday challenges that normal Hawaiians face, even though they may appear…
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Rating: 7.7/10. Fairly short science fiction novel, it begins like a historical novel with a young man settling on Vancouver Island in the early 20th century, which, at the time, was still sparsely populated. The first half of the book jumps between four characters in different centuries in a slice-of-life style, taking place in 1912,…
Gone Viking by Bill Arnott
Rating: 7.7/10. This book is a travel diary journal about the Viking world, mostly taking place in locations visited by the Vikings, such as the UK, Iceland, and Scandinavia (although it’s not limited to these places and also describes places that have no connection to the Vikings, like Hawaii, Haida Gwaii, and Italy). The term…
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Rating: 7.7/10. A short novel that describes life in a Soviet Gulag in the Arctic in the 1950s. The author himself spent several years in the Gulag; this is one of the first published books that revealed the inner details of the Gulag system, and controversially, it was allowed to be published in the Soviet…
Yut Di – One Earth by EHK Ho
Rating: 7.4/10. Novel about the first Chinese immigrants to Canada, escaping war and famine in China in search of a better life. The year is 1880 and the story begins with a wealthy businessman (Cheung) and his son (Wing) on a ship to British Columbia. Their plan is to make a business selling supplies to…
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Rating: 7.7/10. A romance novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author. The story is set in a coastal town in Colombia in the late 19th century. The novel starts with elderly doctor Juvenal Urbino and his wife Fermina Daza attending a funeral; Urbino falls off a ladder while reaching for his parrot and dies; immediately…
Shadows on the Rock by Willie Cather
Rating: 8.2/10. Historical novel set in Quebec City in the year 1697, when the settlement was just a small town on the frontier. The story follows Cecile, a 12-year-old girl whose father is the apothecary (similar to a doctor). Not much plot happens, rather, the novel is based on characters: we get to hear stories…
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Rating: 7.9/10. While technically a novel, there is not much a plot beyond the narrator conversing with a telepathic gorilla in a Socratic dialogue. Ishmael, the gorilla, teaches willing pupils on how to save the world. According to Ishmael, our civilization has accomplished many impressive feats, but is on a surefire path to self-destruction since…
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Rating: 7.7/10. A fairly short novel set in French Indochina (now Southern Vietnam) in the 1930s. It is supposedly autobiographical and is based on the author’s own experiences growing up in the region, but was written several decades later when the author was around 70. It is a romance between a young and poor 15-year-old…