Category: Micro-Reviews

A Kurdish asylum seeker flees Iran and boards a leaky boat chugging toward a better life in Australia. What follows are six years behind bars on Manus Island, Australia’s off-shore detention center north of Papua New Guinea. The conditions are harsh, the tropical weather is …

Here is some bite-sized post-apocalyptic fiction about a woman who might be the last living female on earth. A virus has decimated humankind while Faye Wills lay in a coma. After waking up in a corpse-filled stadium, she has to repair her body and mind …

Aging hiker Jeremy is keenly aware that the clock of life is ticking. To prepare for senescence, he finds soulful nourishment in lonesome backpacking trips through the mountains. One day he wanders off the beaten path and comes across a young couple who lead him …

Forget the movie with Brad Pitt. This isn’t that. The “Oral History of the Zombie War” is more like epistolary reportage, a series of interviews with frontline battlers of the undead after the war has ended. The detail and clear-sightedness of the first-person accounts make …

Before he wrote dense adult novels such as ATONEMENT and AMSTERDAM, Ian McEwan tried his hand at Roald Dahl-esque children’s fiction. The result is this slim volume of stories featuring 11-year-old Peter, who goes on seven fantastical journeys of the imagination. The stories deftly portray …

Clive and Vernon are best friends in London in the 1990s. Clive is a renowned symphony composer, while Vernon runs a flagging newspaper. When a mutual lover dies after a long illness, they enter into a pact: If either of them suffers mental decline, the …

Nora Seed is tired of pain and failure. A self-administered overdose seems like the only cure. But there’s an ethereal weigh station on Nora’s path to oblivion. The Midnight Library provides her with one last chance (actually, endless chances) to come to terms with the …

This hardboiled Canadian mystery is like a gust of salt spray from a Cape Sable gale. Philip Scarnum is a Nova Scotia seaman who finds an abandoned lobster boat. He risks life and limb to save it and earn himself a hefty salvage fee. He’s …

A recent Broadway revival inspired me to reread one of my favorite plays from the undergrad days. Sidney Brustein is a lefty intellectual in 1960s New York. He’s sharp and idealistic, but also fatally cynical. For Sidney, all crusades are lost causes, because the country …

This psychological thriller focuses on actors trying to make it in Hollywood. When one performer disappears after an audition, another’s life is turned upside down. What happened to Emily? Why is Mia now in danger? Mia’s story unfolds at a fast, voicy clip that’s easy …