Times Reads: Home

Atkinson is dealing with very dark stuff - trauma, sexual predators and the banal face of iniquity - but it never sinks the novel.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Evaristo's range is impressive. She can gently mock the idiosyncrasies of political correctness in one moment and deliver a devastating account by a rape survivor in another.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

It might seem pat, but perhaps that is what is urgently needed now: an ode to resistance, a handing of the baton from an older generation to a younger one. And above all, a testament to the power of women who write.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

In the face of the overwhelming fractures of history, The Water Dancer strives to repair a broken people through empowerment - literally, in Hiram's case. It is immense work. Yet, it strains towards hope.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Now, American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has produced a novel that combines the slave narrative with the superhero genre - and the result is unquestionably spectacular literature.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Besson, on whom the protagonist appears to be based, renders the contradictions in the boys' lives with refreshing honesty through Philippe's voice.

Seow Bei Yi, The Straits Times

Aciman articulates love with unparalleled humanity and in Find Me, he continues to shine in the liminal space of unsaid emotions, the tension of vulnerability, and the delicacy of affection which can exist between partners, between parent and child, and between kismet strangers.

Lydia Vasko, The Straits Times

American author Camryn Garrett is only 19 and penned this debut novel at 17. As a teenager herself, she captures what makes adolescence special - the amplification of things that adults treat as minor or ordinary.

Jan Lee, The Straits Times

Olive, Again was a joy to read, all the more to see a misunderstood woman of incredible depth, receive a bit of sympathy and get the ending she deserves.

Lydia Vasko, The Straits Times

These are heavy themes, but Strout remains a captivating storyteller throughout. Her clear and powerful prose brings Olive and the townsfolk forcefully and compassionately to life so vividly that it is sad to realise that one is unlikely to come across them again.

Lydia Vasko, The Straits Times

What makes his contribution significant is the way he uses his literary gifts to not just explain the science but also inspire a sense of wonder.

Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times

The Body makes for immensely pleasurable reading as readers have in Bryson a companionable and witty guide.

Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times

If one ever wonders whether the climate crisis is serious enough to warrant the millions of students taking to the streets to call for more action, activist Naomi Klein leaves no room for doubt.

Audrey Tan, The Straits Times

Her writing is evocative in its simplicity and mostly effective in highlighting the pervasive fear and the consequence of silence.

Walter Sim, The Straits Times

It is unimaginable, the courage it must take for a victim to expose to public scrutiny a self so precariously held together and at such cost. Yet she has given the world her name and, with it, her story and her hope. What a gift.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Shafak is a masterful storyteller and the strong female characters in this tale only serve to showcase the best of her ideas.

Elfarina, @pagesofelly

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first in James' Dark Star trilogy, is a huge, relentlessly rich novel likely to go far - Black Panther (2018) star Michael B. Jordan and Warner Bros have already bought the film rights.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Collins issues her own challenge to the canon of English literature, taking a beloved genre and digging through its innards to unveil its ugly underpinnings. Like her heroine, she carves her own place in an unwelcoming space - bold, bloody, blazing.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

This is an elegiac and at times extremely harrowing novel.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Zusak is a supremely sensitive writer, and no image is out of place - be it the keys of Penny's piano or
those of the bullet-grey Remington typewriter owned by Michael's mother.

Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times