2 Books Like Sipsworth

A truly unforgettable novel, clever and moving at the same time. Confused, lonely, and frustratingly stubborn, Cyrus Shams is his own worst enemy--the best kind of character in my opinion! Newly sober and too smart for his own good, he pours his heart into his writing but neglects the relationships that sustain him. There were times I wanted to shake him, but I never stopped routing for him to find his way, and find peace.

Scattered with Cyrus' poetry, dreams, and imagined conversations, the novel has a gorgeous literariness to it that pulled me right in as a reader. At times, I felt as if the author were on another intellectual plane, but instead of feeling lost, I felt as though my eyes were being opened to a new understanding of the world.

Cyrus immigrated to the US from Iran as a child after his mother's plane was bombed by… show more.

I loved how WHALE SONG by Elizabeth O'Connor immersed me in a completely unknown world. Set on a remote Welsh island in the year 1938, the novel pulled me in with its windswept imagery and pulsing island rhythms. Ever present throughout the novel is the slow and steady decomposition of a massive baleen whale on the shore of the island, lending an ominous tone to every interaction.

Curious and intelligent by nature, 18-year-old Manod longs to see and experience life beyond the three square miles and 50 or so people who occupy her tiny island home. Yet she's deeply rooted in her island home and fiercely protective of its traditional ways.

When two ethnographers come to study its culture, she is initially dazzled by them, seeing and judging herself and the people around her from the perspective of these outsiders. As their true motives become apparent, she is forced to… show more.