December
109. School for Love – Olivia Manning
108. A Christmas Memory – Truman Capote
107. The Last Wolf – László Krasznahorkai
106. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank – Thad Carhart
105. Fair Play – Tove Jansson
November
“…giving up writing and reading, abandoning my work and my books, would leave me without any consolation. It would be like giving up on life itself…” – César Aira, The Famous Magician
102. Memed, My Hawk – Yashar Kemal
100 & 101. Of Strangers and Bees & Manaschi – Hamid Ismailov
99. Nights of Plague – Orhan Pamuk
96. The Famous Magician – César Aira
95. Madonna in a Fur Coat – Sabahattin Ali
October
“The paper ye may burn, but what the paper holds ye cannot burn.” – Tariq Ali, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree
88 – 92. The Islam Quintet – Tariq Ali
87. The Noise of Time – Julian Barnes
86. Katalin Street – Magda Szabó
85. The Adventures of Sindbad – Gyula Krúdy
84. Journey by Moonlight – Antal Szerb
September
“In any work of literature the most interesting bits are in the detail,” Kőnig had often said in his lessons. “Be sure to attend to them closely.” – Magda Szabó, Abigail
81. At the Wall of the Almighty – Farnoosh Moshiri
79 & 80. The Wedding of Zein & Season of Migration to the North – Tayeb Salih
78. Difficult Women: A Memoir of Three – David Plante
76. The Unknown Masterpiece – Honoré de Balzac
75. A Time to Keep Silence – Patrick Leigh Fermor
August Women in Translation Month
“…she had always read aloud to him, had told him that literature was the ‘anchor in the black lake of life’.” – Nino Haratischvili, The Eighth Life
70. Tomb of Sand – Geetanjali Shree and #WiTMonth Wrap-Up
69. Sculptor’s Daughter – Tove Jansson
68. The Eighth Life – Nino Haratischvili
67. Iza’s Ballad – Magda Szabó
66. Celestial Bodies – Jokha Alharthi
64. Sex and Lies – Leila Slimani
63. Embroideries – Marjane Satrapi
62. The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irène Némirovsky by Her Daughter – Élisabeth Gille
61. Fire in the Blood – Irène Némirovsky
60. The Fall of the Imam – Nawal El Saadawi
July
“And so, the time has now come for us writers to shoulder our responsibility. Do we understand the magnitude of this noble and far from simple task? Do we understand that it is we who, more resolutely than anyone, must now enter into battle against the forces of forgetfulness, against the slow and implacable flow of the river of time?” – Vasily Grossman
57. Watermark – Joseph Brodsky
56. Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
55. Running in the Family – Michael Ondaatje
54. Stalingrad – Vasily Grossman
53. Everything Flows – Vasily Grossman
June
“…so stories are travels, and travels are stories…” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust
50. A Carpet Ride to Khiva – Christopher Aslan Alexander
49. Wanderlust – Rebecca Solnit
48. The Captain’s Daughter – Alexander Pushkin
47. The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist – Orhan Pamuk
May
“Writing is not the voice’s shadow but the track of its steps… only writing has the power to move a voice through time, and make it as immortal as the gods.” – Rafik Schami, Damascus Nights
44. Down Below – Leonora Carrington
43. Navel – Rica Bolipata – Santos
42. Damascus Nights – Rafik Schami
41. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
40. Why I Write – George Orwell
37 & 38. Genius and Discovery | Triumph and Disaster – Stefan Zweig
April
“‘Pass the time?’ said the Queen. ‘Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass… one just wishes one had more of it.’” – Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
31 – 34. The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
30. Searching – Nawal El Saadawi
29. The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett
28. Ways of Seeing – John Berger
March Women’s History Month | International Women’s Month
“The world changed when definitions of womankind were altered.” – Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, The Woman Who Read Too Much
24 & 25. Cockroaches / Our Lady of the Nile – Scholastique Mukasonga
23. The Penelopiad (The Play) – Margaret Atwood
22. The Woman Who Read Too Much – Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
20. Orwell’s Roses – Rebecca Solnit
19. The Beekeeper of Aleppo – Christy Lefteri
February
“…the realm of literature spans all of human experience…” – Mario Vargas Llosa, The Language of Passion
16. The Bridge of Beyond – Simone Schwarz-Bart
15. A Musical Offering – Luis Sagasti
14. The Books of Jacob – Olga Tokarczuk
13. The Other – Ryszard Kapuściński
12. Conversations with Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Plinio Mendoza
11. Conversations with Edward Said – Tariq Ali
January
“Beauty is a responsibility.” – Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
8. Desertion – Abdulrazak Gurnah
7. A Field Guide to Getting Lost – Rebecca Solnit
6. The Devils’ Dance – Hamid Ismailov
5. When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut
3. The Hearing Trumpet – Leonora Carrington
2. West of Kabul, East of New York – Tamim Ansary
1. Destiny Disrupted – Tamim Ansary
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