Contemporary

From the publisher: It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape. The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an “authentic” Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. As she’s pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen. An exquisitely-crafted debut, which won the Prix Robert Walser, Winter in Sokcho is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation. Elisa Shua Dusapin’s voice is distinctive and unmistakable.

Did I pick this one up because I judged a book by its cover? Yes…

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From the Publisher: From award-winning novelist Argentine Betina González comes a dizzying, luminous English-language debut about an American town overrun by a mysterious hallucinogen and the collision of three unexpected characters through the mayhem.

If you’re the kind of reader who needs a plot with lots of action, steer clear. I mean, yeah, the deer have all gone wacko and are attacking people, and people are “dropping out” of society and living in the woods, but this isn’t action-packed by any means. But if you’re okay with stewing in the discomfort of your own inevitable aging or the nagging need to escape anything and/or everything? Yeah, pick this one up. Although, probably don’t pick…

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