One Hour of Fervor by Muriel Barbery

The completion of a story left untold in the author’s book A Single Rose, this loving tribute to Japanese culture is an enlightening experience for westerners. Beautifully told and exquisitely translated, it is a profoundly pleasurable read.
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You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

A wildly imaginative tale of the clash between the Spanish, as represented by Cortes and the American natives, led by Moctezuma. Bloody and violent, this depiction of a tragic historic encounter is enlightening, if grim.
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Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili

This dark novel set in post-Soviet Georgia by a native of that region now living in the UK speaks with Russian soulfulness of loss and atonement, both recurring themes in the history of this contentious and deeply spiritual people. It is finely written and richly adorned with detail which makes the whole a compelling and engrossing read.
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Harbor Lights by James Lee Burke

Short stories and a novella from one of the finest living writers of American literature, these grim and gritty tales are propelled by a doomed sense of honor, dignity and justice that always leads to tragedy in the service of truth and right.
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