Origin, by Diana Abu-Jaber

If you’re not a parent–or it’s been a while since you had a baby–you may not know that SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or, formerly, crib death) is a Big Deal in the pediatric world these days. We were barraged with warnings when our daughter was born earlier this year: put your baby to sleep [...]

The Winter Queen and The Turkish Gambit

My husband and I read The Turkish Gambit (by Boris Akunin, trans. Andrew Bromfield) either early last year or the year before–it’s a bit fuzzy in my memory. This is at least in part because I had difficulty following the plot, though it may have been unremarkable for other reasons, too. The translation style adopted [...]