Book cover of The Nice and the Good

Book description

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea, The Sea comes a story about revenge and reconciliation, and the difference between being nice and being good.

John Ducane, a respected Whitehall civil servant, is asked to investigate the suicide of a colleague. As he pursues his inquiry, he uncovers…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Nice and the Good as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

When I taught in Okinawa, the base library happened to have a few books by Iris Murdoch: I read one and was hooked. I read as many of her books as I could find, even buying bootleg copies in Taipei.

Several years later I was teaching in England when the librarian mentioned that the officers’ wives’ book club was scheduled to meet Murdoch but none of them had ever read her. Thrilled, I joined them in Murdoch’s husband’s messy Oxford office where I literally knelt at the author’s feet and asked her stupid questions. Were her novels autobiographical? OF COURSE…

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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