“Time flows in strange ways when you’re not paying attention.” The novel follows Tsukiko, a single woman in her late thirties, who unexpectedly reconnects with her former high […]
Japanese literature
The Briefcase
“Time passes, people move. Like a river’s flow, it never ends.” Chapter 1: An Unexpected Reunion The novel opens with Tsukiko, a single woman in her late thirties, […]
German literature
The Appointment
“They’re always watching. Even when you think you’re alone, they’re there.” The Appointment follows a young Romanian woman, a factory worker, as she rides a tram to an […]
German literature
Austerlitz
“And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.” Part One The narrator recounts his encounters with Jacques Austerlitz, a man he first meets in the 1960s […]
Russian literature
The Kukotsky Enigma
“Memory is a capricious and unreliable thing, but without it, we are nothing.” Chapter 1: The Professor’s World The novel opens with Pavel Kukotsky, a renowned gynecologist in […]
French literature
Platform
“The world is a marketplace; it always has been.” The novel follows Michel Renault, a disillusioned French civil servant in his forties, who drifts through life with little […]
American literature
The Corrections
“The madness of the autumn had passed. The madness of the winter had yet to seize them.” Part One: The Failure The novel opens with Enid Lambert, an […]
English literature
Number9Dream
“The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Chapter 1: Goatwriter The novel opens with Eiji Miyake, a 20-year-old from a rural Japanese island, arriving in […]
English literature
Atonement
“The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.” Part One: 1935 The […]