5 Wonderful New Books for August 2024
Some exciting new books sliding into the end of the summer including Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa. Enjoy 5 Wonderful New Books for August 2024!
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5 Wonderful New Books for August 2024
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water.
In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur’s only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy sit of Lalish in Iraq. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people.
In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage. Zaleekhah foresees a life drained of all love and meaning – until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything.
A dazzling feat of storytelling from one of the greatest writers of our time, Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel that spans centuries, continents and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops:
‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget.’
The Volcano Daughters by Gina Maria Balibrera
El Salvador, 1923. Graciela, a young girl growing up on a volcano in a community of Indigenous women, is summoned to the capital, where she is claimed as an oracle for a rising dictator. There she meets Consuelo, the sister she has never known, who was stolen from their home before Graciela was born. The two spend years under the cruel El Gran Pendejo’s regime, unwillingly helping his reign of terror, until genocide strikes the community from which they hail. Each believing the other to be dead, they escape, fleeing across the globe, reinventing themselves until fate ultimately brings them back together in the most unlikely of ways…
Endlessly surprising, vividly imaginative, bursting with lush life, The Volcano Daughters charts a new history and mythology of El Salvador, fiercely bringing forth voices that have been calling out for generations.
Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa
After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in the coastal town of Ashiya. It is a year which will change her life.
The 1970s are bringing changes to Japan and her uncle’s magnificent colonial mansion opens up a new and unfamiliar world for Tomoko; its sprawling gardens are even home to a pygmy hippo the family keeps as a pet. Tomoko finds her relatives equally exotic and beguiling and her growing friendship with her cousin Mina draws her into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.
Rich with the magic and mystery of youth, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time, and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.
Time of the Flies by Claudia Piñeiro
Inés is released after fifteen years in prison for murdering Charo, the lover of her ex-husband. Her life has changed, but so has the society with the progress of feminism, the laws for equal marriage and abortion, and the use of inclusive language. Now Inés, a traditional housewife for whom motherhood was not a happy experience, understands that she must be practical and that has to adapt. Even if it costs her.
She associates with La Manca, the only friend she made inside the prison, and they set up a double company where she carries out fumigations while her partner investigates as a private detective. Like Thelma and Louise from the suburbs, Inés and La Manca face complex situations as part of their new reality but with the desire to reinvent themselves.
One day, Mrs. Bonar, one of Inés’s clients, proposes a very disturbing exchange, a way out of the darkness of the past. The proposal can tilt the balance dangerously to the wrong side, but it can also change their lives.
The Time of the Flies is the new and long-awaited novel by Claudia Piñeiro, which continues the story of Inés, the remembered protagonist of Tuya, in a tale of courage and friendship that fully portrays us as a society.
Blue Graffiti by Calahan Skogman
Living in the home he inherited from his mother and abandoned by his father, painter and construction worker Cash has never known anything beyond the fields of Johnston, WI—never particularly wanted to, either. Why would he when his friends are there, his work is there, his history is there? He loves Johnston. But when an emerald-eyed stranger named Rose blows into town one summer evening in his favorite local bar, everything changes. It’s love at first sight. For Cash, anyway.
What follows is an intimate reflection on the love, faith, and tragedy that courses through the blood of America’s backbone. Cash and his closest friends find themselves vital threads in the fabric of their community, the memory of those forgotten, and partners in a new enterprise. A bluesey ode to the Beat generation for the modern era, Blue Graffiti is writer Calahan Skogman’s poetic debut brimming with an essential freedom, romance, and longing for a bygone era.
If you enjoyed 5 Wonderful New Books for August 2024 check out our Book of the Month for July 2024 Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino.
