Book picks as published in the Dec. 11, 2019 St. Albert Gazette. For more great reads, check here.
Celestial bodies : a novel
By Jokha Alharthi
In the village of al-Awafi, in Oman, two families are joined by marriage: Mayya, the eldest of three sisters, marries Abdallah, son of a wealthy merchant, after suffering her first heartbreak. The first ever novel originally written in Arabic to win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English.
10 Minutes 38 seconds in this strange world : a novel
By Elif Shafak
Our brains stay active for ten minutes after our heart stops beating. For Tequila Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory – growing up with her father and his two wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage. Each memory reminds Leila of the five friends she met along the way – the friends who are now desperately trying to find her.