August book reviews

A month of firsts and the books I read to get me through them

My dad died at the end of July. That meant that August was a month of firsts. First time I’d visit my childhood home and see all his corners of the house empty of his noise and clutter. First time I’d walk our regular dog-walking route and know that I could never walk it with him again.

First time I’d finish a book – it was The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – and pick up the phone wanting so badly to tell him about how it kept me guessing, made me laugh, how he’d absolutely love it, how I wondered if there was a movie adaptation and did he have it in his massive movie collection?

Books were always our thing. The first topic of conversation when I’d pop home for a weekend, or when we’d walk Coco together before the sun was up. The most reliable source of argument between us because Conrad was too dense and Dickens too trite for my taste. A refuge for both of us when the world was just too heavy.

August was one of those months for me – time felt out of joint and everything except staying in bed with a good book felt like just a little too much. Here are the books I hid away inside of this month:

Historical fiction

A History of Burning - Janika Oza

A tale of colonization and diaspora spanning post-Partition India to the rise of Edi Amin and the expulsion of Asians from Uganda to the Black Lives Matter movement on the streets of Toronto. Heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. Told across five generations of a family that are torn apart and brought together again across continents and decades. Eye-opening, as I knew little about Ugandan history. Must-read for Pachinko fans.

Recommended by someone but I can’t remember who!

The Mountain Sings - Nguyen Phan Que Mai

A visceral but poignant account of one North Vietnamese family's struggle to reconnect after nearly a century of violence, political persecution, global interference, and chaos. Evocatively told from the alternating perspectives of a grandmother and her granddaughter. Spans the land 'reforms' of 1930s Vietnam, the infighting that occurred under Japanese occupation, the horrors of the Vietnam War, and the uneasy peace and suspicion that followed the American withdrawal. A heavy, deeply personal account from a perspective we don't see much in the West.

Recommended by Justine

The Rose Code - Kate Quinn

Three women from very different walks of life end up working at Bletchley Park, helping break Nazi code during WWII. So much to love about this book - meticulous research into the stresses and successes of a codebreaker's life, compelling narrators (including a neurodivergent one!), good love stories, and mystery plot involving a traitor in the Allied forces' midst. A story of female friendship and found family - I loved this one even more than Quinn's The Huntress.

Recommended by Jorden

 The Road to Station X - Sarah Baring

A necessary follow up for fans the The Rose Code. A memoir by real life debutante Sarah Baring. An English aristocratic, Baring repaired fighter planes before ending up at Bletchley Park. Features characters who ended up inspiring Quinn's novel. An eye-opening glimpse into both the inner workings of Bletchley and into many ways women contributed on the homefront. My grandma was a radio operator in the Air Force during WWII, working in little hut on a requisitioned country lord's estate in Yorkshire. Thought of her a lot reading this one.

Non-fiction

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

A lyrical letter from Coates to his son about the brutal reality of living as a Black person in the States. Coates' university friend was killed by a police officer, which was the impetus for this reflective memoir. Spans his childhood learning to survive the schools and streets of Baltimore, to his utopian college days at historically Black Howard University in Washington, DC, to growing his family in Manhattan. A powerful and sobering read about how the Black body is always just a hairsbreadth away from being coopted and violated by the systems that govern society.

Recommended by Kelly

The Mindbody Prescription - John Sarno

A compelling argument for the role that emotions and psychological state play in the physiological manifestation of pain. Sarno is a physician and professor who shares countless studies and cases where psychoanalytic counselling and other deep emotional work improved patient outcomes in chronic back pain, migraines, and more. I was nursing a back injury for most of August, and when you work in the movement world, you get all kinds of good reading recs when you have an injury!

Recommended by Sarah

Contemporary fiction

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - Balli Kaur Jaswal

Exactly what the title sounds like - an English literacy class in a Punjabi-dominated suburb of London, England takes a twist to the sexy as widows share erotic stories and laughs. Mix in a murder mystery, honour killings, and complex conversations about traditional Punjabi values and being "British" enough to fit in, and you get one entertaining read.

Recommended by Brittany

Fantasy

Grace of Kings - Ken Liu

The first epic fantasy by established translator and short story writer Ken Liu. Massive in scope and page count with a cast of characters that evokes Robert Jordan or George R. R. Martin in its size, variety, and quirkiness. A story of conquest and brotherhood that unfolds across an inventive, feudal-China-esque collection of city-states. An ambitious novel with a satisfying ending.

My half of a book swap with Shannon

Under Heaven - Guy Gavriel Kay

My favourite historical fantasy writer tackles a setting inspired by China during the Warring States era. A simple premise - a soldier is given a powerful gift that puts him at the centre of a political struggle and a rebellion against empire. Duels, assassinations, and bloody battles ensue. Not my favourite Kay novel by a longshot, but beautifully told nonetheless. Poetry, koens, and witty aphorisms are prized among the central culture of the novel, and Kay's delicate, philosophical prose reflects that.

Mystery

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton

One of the best murder mysteries I've ever read? A winding and complex tale of multiple identities, intricately woven in a way that doesn't underestimate the audience's intelligence. Requires some patience to follow, but worth sticking around for the ending. Has it all - a spooky 20th century English manor home, an unsolved murder, the lewd decadence of the rich and desperate vices of the poor, fox hunts and libraries and chess boards, shootings and poisonings and stabbings (oh so many stabbings), and the undergirding question of what makes us who we are - our memories, or the choices we make in the moment in front of us?

Recommended by Jenny