In Nanae Aoyama’s droll novella "A Perfect Day to Be Alone", an indecisive girl cohabitates with a woman who challenges her preconceptions and directionlessness. Twenty-year-old Chizu is ill-employed and hard to impress. She wants to... Read More

Set in the 1960s and 1970s in a city where World War II still reverberates, Robert Seethaler’s tender novel "The Café with No Name" is about a Viennese restaurateur’s interactions with his acquaintances and customers. Robert,... Read More

In Sergei Lebedev’s harrowing novel "The Lady of the Mine", murdered souls buried in an abandoned Ukrainian coal mine haunt the country’s emerging conflict with Russia. In 2014, Zhanna leaves college to care for her ailing mother,... Read More

A smitten Omani man’s beekeeping consumes Zahran Alqasmi’s novel "Honey Hunger". Returning to his home village after a tough winter that forced the temporary relocation of his bee colony to the desert region of Juba, Azzan, a... Read More

In Eva Menasse’s historical novel "Darkenbloom", the wartime secrets of a small Austrian town are compromised by the urgent demands of the present. The book begins in 1989 in the Austrian village of Darkenbloom. Though it’s no longer... Read More

In this poignant picture book about an unlikely friendship that outlives even death, eclectic illustrations follow an astronaut’s arrival to an alien world with strange creatures and colorful, swirling landscapes. One of the world’s... Read More

In a remote Italian town, an unassuming cobbler is drawn into helping partisans fight against fascists and Nazis in Sacha Naspini’s novel "The Bishop’s Villa". Despite missing several fingers, René is the cobbler of Le Case. He’s... Read More

In Peter Macsovszky’s philosophical novel "Making Skeletons Dance", a barfly takes on Amsterdam. As a struggling writer and relative newcomer to the Netherlands, Simon’s perspective on the place is different than most people’s. He... Read More