Book cover of Rainbirds

Book description

Set in an imagined town outside Tokyo, Clarissa Goenawan's dark, spellbinding literary debut follows a young man's path to self-discovery in the wake of his sister's murder.

Ren Ishida has nearly completed his graduate degree at Keio University when he receives news of his sister's violent death. Keiko was stabbed…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rainbirds as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A Japanese ghost story, set in an imaginary, contemporary, Japanese town by a Singaporean first novelist.

I picked this out at Brighton Library because I liked the cover, but Clarissa Goenawan's Rainbirds has survived the goodreads treatment, so hopefully she's a writer to watch (I mean, there will be more of these).

Readers have recalled Haruki Murakami, because it's allegedly Japanese, and a bit off-kilter, but to me this dreamlike narrative seemed fresh and floating: ungrounded, not alienated. I thought of another Japanese writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, & The Buried Giant: a misty, off-kilter take on Arthurian Britain, in which everyone…

If you love Rainbirds...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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