Books Set in Asia and Europe, Turkey and London, England

Honor, by Elif Shafak (2011)

The novel opens as Esma, British-Turkish woman, goes to pick up her older brother, Iskender, from prison after serving a term for murdering his mother Pembe.  He was just 16-years-old when he stabbed his mother to death after hearing rumors that his mother was having an affair.  Adem, Pembe's husband, had abandoned the family for another woman, and Iskender felt it was his responsibility to protect the families reputation.

The novel bounces around from the 1940s to 1991, so the family history  slowly peeled back as the events come into focus.  In the 1940s, Pembe and her identical twin sister, Jamila, were born to a poor family in Kurdish Turkey.  Pembe married and ultimately moved to London with her husband and children, hoping for a better life.  Jamila remained in their village.  As a child, she had been abducted, so her virginity was question and she never married.

Life in London, wasn't the golden life as expected.  Does the family adhere to its old traditions, or try to fit into English life?  When Adem moved out, the stage was set for a clash of cultures.  The novel described, in part, the immigrant experience, as well as age-old tradition.  There are a number of twists and turns in this book which make the ending a gift.

Read: July 25, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America, California, USA

Porcupines, by Fran Fabriczki (2026)

Porcupines is a very funny novel about Sonia, young illegal immigrant from Hungary living in California, and her young daughter, Mila.  Sonia left Hungary as an 18-year-old to visit her sister and overstayed her visa.  In Hungary, her family led a very secular life, but her sister has become very Orthodox in the United States.  After she becomes pregnant, Sonia cuts herself off from her family.

New to America and new to motherhood, Sonia navigates live in California, while concealing her past.

This was a quick and funny novel.

Read: June 24, 2026

4 Stars

Books Set in North America; California and Oregon

Small World, by Jonathan Evison (2022)

 

This novel starts out with a train crash in the winter somewhere in Oregon en route to Seattle.  Walter Bergen is on his final run as engineer before his retirement.  After the crash, we meet several of the passengers, who come from all walks of life and backgrounds.  Not only do we meet them, but we are introduced to their ancestors and their struggles to make a life in America.

 

The novel switches from the present day to the 1850s where we learn of the immigrant experience of several families.  Walter Bergen descended from an Irish family who fled Ireland during the potato famine.  There is Jenny Chen, whose ancestor Wu Chen, came from China in the 1850s and began life in California panning for gold.  He acquired a small stash of gold, which he turned into thriving grocery business.  Malik Flowers is a young basketball with dreams of being drafted by the NBA.  He is descended from a run-away slave.  Laila, whose ancestors were Native Americans, hopped on the train to escape from an abusive husband.

 

I enjoyed reading about the backgrounds of all of these characters.

 

Read:  September 13, 2023

 

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: American South: St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee

Marching to Zion, by Mary Glickman (2013)

This historical novel delves into the struggles of Jews and African-Americans in the early half of the 20th Century.  The book begins when Mags Preacher, a young African-American woman, leaves her home in the rural countryside and moves to St. Louis, Missouri.  She has dreams of learning the beauty trade so she can open a salon back in her hometown.  The first person she encounters upon arriving in St. Louis is Magnus Bailey.  The only job she can get is working with Mr. Fishbein, a Jewish refugee who runs a funeral home that serves the Black families in the town.

Fishbein had fled Eastern Europe amid the pogroms that killed his wife and child.  When he left Europe, he brought with him his adopted daughter, Minerva, known as Minnie.  She had lost her family in the violence against Jews.  Seeing her family killed experiences as a very young girl caused her to be a very troubled young woman after arriving in America.

Mags is happily working at the funeral home and eventually marries George McCallum, the manager, and they live in a small apartment attached to the funeral home.  After the violent race riots in St. Louis in 1917, Fishbein’s funeral home is totally destroyed.  Fishbein and Mags barely escape with their lives, but George is killed.  Mags then disappears from the story.

The novel moves from Mags Preacher to the very troubled love story between Minnie, a fiery red-head Magnus.  Interracial relationships were criminal offenses at the time.  Fishbein, Minnie and Magnus move from St. Louis to Memphis to looking for a safer place to live.  The novel describes life for Jews and African-Americans during the Depression through the mid-1930s.  Fishbein realizes that there is no safe place for Jews in America, especially for his troubled daughter and her lover, Magnus.

After I finished the book, I realized that Mags Preacher, the young woman at the beginning of the story had completely disappeared.  What happened to her?

Read: August 8, 2023

3.5 Stars

Books Set in Asia and North America: Pakistan, Iraq, and San Francisco, California

The Bad Muslim Discount, by Syed M Masood (2021)

This novel follows two Muslim families who immigrated to the San Francisco from Islamic countries.  Anvar Faris’ family left Karachi, Pakistan in the mid-1990s when fundamentalism begins to take over their country.  Safwa, a young girl living in war-torn Baghdad, Iraq, illegally escapes with her father to the United States.

 

Anvar’s mother is a deeply devout Muslim, but his father is more laid-back.  Anvar’s mother and older brother easily settle into California and into its Muslim community.  His father, however, finds the community a bit more difficult.  All is well until 9-11.  Anvar’s brother is the “good” Muslim in the family.  He goes to mosque, prays five times a day, doesn’t smoke or drink and becomes engaged to a women chosen by his parents.  Anvar, however, it the “bad” Muslim.  He drinks, sleeps with women and goes to mosque only when his mother insists.

 

In college, Anvar meets and falls in love with Zuha Shah.  Although they part ways, Anvar never stops loving her.  He isn’t as religious as Zuha and settles for being a “bad” Muslim.

 

Meanwhile, Safwa is living with an abusive father and confined to her house in Baghdad.  Her father then was abducted by Americans during the Iraq War, and she was left along with her brother who was dying of a terminal illness.  As the war drew closer to her home, she was forced to flee to Basra.  Ultimately her father was released, and they were reunited.  His abuse, however, continued.  Enter Oais, an evil villager.  He offers Safwa and her father an opportunity to escape to the United States, but at a terrible price.

 

Safwa and her father begin a new life with new names in San Francisco.  Safwa is now known as Azza.  As it happens, they live in the same apartment building as Anvar.  The landlord has a tender heart and gives people in need what he calls a “good Muslim discount” on the rent.  Anvar and Azza begin a relationship, but from her perspective, it is a way to escape the violence inflicted upon her by her father.

 

This novel explores faith and geopolitical issues through the eyes of the lens of Muslim Americans.  The author points out that Muslims have been a part of American fabric throughout the history’s country.

 

I loved this novel.

 

Read: August 2, 2023

5 Stars

Books Set in North America, United States, Virginia

Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (2019)

 

This novel is part courtroom drama, part mystery.  Pak and Young Yoo and their daughter Mary, are South Korean immigrants.  They immigrated to the United States in hopes of providing their teenaged daughter a good education.  For visa reasons, Young Yoo and Mary arrived several years before Pak could join them.  Once the family is together, they find themselves in rural Virginia in a town called Miracle Creek.

 

Pak was able to get a license to run a private hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) center.  The therapy claimed to provide treatment for a variety of illnesses and conditions, including autism and infertility.  The HBOT chamber is a refurbished submarine that can accommodate several patients in one “dive.”

 

The novel opens with a fire at the facility, in which two of the people chamber were killed, and several others seriously wounded.  The mother of the 8-year-old autistic child who died in the fire is the prime suspect.  Usually, the mothers would enter the chamber with their children, but on this day, Elizabeth, opted not to participate.

 

Elizabeth’s demeanor in the courtroom certainly makes her look suspect, and as witnesses testify, her guilt seems clear.  But as the trial continues, the author peels back the stories and motives of the Yoos and the other families who were in the chamber on the day of the fire.  Each person has his/her own reasons for keeping secrets.

 

This was a quick read as a novel, but ultimately, I was left unsatisfied.  There were still too many issues that were raised in the book, that were left unanswered.  As Chekhov noted: If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.

 

Read: February 2, 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Israel

Waking Lions, by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (2014)

Dr. Eitan Green is a young neurosurgeon who had been transferred to a remote hospital in the Negev because he refused to participate in a bribery scheme in his hospital in the city.  While driving home one evening after a long day at the hospital, he ran over and killed an Eritrean immigrant on a lonely stretch of the desert road.  He got out of his SUV to investigate, and, although the man was still alive, it was clear that the man was fatally injured.  Eitan got back in his vehicle and drove home to his wife and two young sons.

The next morning, the dead man’s widow, Sirket, knocked on Eitan’s door and handed him his wallet.  She told him to meet her late in the evening in a garage nearby.  Thinking that she wanted money, Eitan withdrew a large sum of money to bring to their rendezvous.  Sirket took the money, but she wanted so much more.

Illegal immigrants from Eritrea have been flooding into Israel and are in need of medical care.  Sirket quickly saw that she could blackmail Eitan into treating these people in return for his silence.  She demanded that he go to the garage each night after his daily rounds are over.  In order to do this, Eitan must begin a web of lies with his wife and with his boss at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Eitan’s wife, Liat, is a police detective.  She was assigned to investigate the hit-and-run.  Her fellow officers, however, were disinterested in tracking down the driver, since the victim was “just” an illegal.  Furthermore, they blamed the hit-and-run on young Bedouin boy, who refused to participate in his defense after he was arrested.

This is a novel of secrets.  As the layers of the characters are peeled back, the reader learns of the secrets each one carries and the price of those burdens.  The novel also investigates the complex relations between the Israeli, Bedouins and Eritreans.

The title of the book comes from an Eritrean proverb that says once a lion has woken up and tastes human flesh, it will never eat anything else again.  As we learn more about Sirket, we realize that she has become the woken lion.

Because Eitan is a neurosurgeon, the first few pages describe medical conditions.  I was struck by the description of the hit-and-run victim because my mother was also struck and killed by a car (although not a hit-and-run) and suffered a similar injury.

This is the best book I have read this year.

Read:  July 21, 2020

5 Stars