In the opening story, "Afternoon at the Bakery," a customer comes into a shop to buy strawberry shortcake for, as it turns out, a child who died years before. The situations seem made for Murakami's particular blend of the real and the fantastic. You certainly get that feeling of being haunted by Murakami when you begin reading the "Eleven Dark Tales," as she calls them, in this story cycle by Yoko Ogawa. I'm not making a perfect analogy when I suggest that most contemporary Japanese writers seem to be working under the shadow of Haruki Murakami, but I hope it highlights the spirit of the situation. It used to be a truism among critics of British poetry that Keats and most of his fellow Romantic poets worked in the shadow of John Milton. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Revenge Subtitle Eleven Dark Tales Author Yoko Ogawa
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The novel charts the rise of Saladin as Sultan of Egypt and Syria and follows him as he prepares, in alliance with his Jewish and Christian subjects, to take Jerusalem back from the Crusaders. At the heart of the novel is an affecting love affair between the Sultan’s favored wife, Jamila, and the beautiful Halina, a later addition to the harem. A series of interconnected stories follows, tales brim*ming over with warmth, earthy humor and passions in which ideals clash with realities and dreams are confounded by desires. Saladin grants Ibn Yakub permission to talk to his wife and retainers so that he might present a full portrait in the Sultan’s memoirs. The Book of Saladin is the fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator of Jerusalem, as dictated to a Jewish scribe, Ibn Yakub. Tariq Ali’s second novel in The Islam Quintet is a rich and teeming chronicle set in twelfth century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan (2021). The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom (2009).Speaking of Empire and Resistance (2005).Who’s Afraid of Margaret Thatcher? (1984).Pakistan: Military Rule or People’s Power (1970). Workaholic Erin Ryder was on the fast track to self-destruction. But safety lies only with each other, as they battle the evil that lives in Gillette Park. As Mason and Grace’s friendship grows, so does their attraction. Jennings discovers the dark-and well hidden-secrets of Gillette Park. Mason is tasked with being the go-between and she soon finds herself with a front row seat as Dr. Not everyone in this mountain town has embraced the idea of bringing in a psychic, including Mason’s uncle and boss, Sheriff Cooper. Now the FBI has solicited her help in catching the serial killer. Running from that gift was useless so she’s learned to embrace it instead. Grace Jennings has what some call a gift. The serial killer still haunts Gillette Park and she becomes consumed with catching him. But being a cop in LA lost its charm and-after a breakup-Mason heads back to her hometown. At eighteen, she headed off to college and the bright lights of Los Angeles, thinking she’d never return home to the broken family and forgotten friendships she’d left behind. Mason Cooper couldn’t wait to leave Gillette Park. A serial killer hides among them-a serial killer who strikes twice, sometimes three times a year. The murder shook the town but they soon found it was only the beginning. Two days later her body was found lodged beneath the footbridge over Boulder Creek. Twenty-three years ago, a young girl went missing. Gillette Park, a sleepy town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, harbors a secret. |