A friend asked for recommendations for summer reading. I dipped into my memory of books I’ve read over the past 15 years or so and easily picked four that I loved.
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“The Ministry of Time,” by Kaliane Bradley. A near-future secret British agency retrieves a small group of people from the past — all people who were on the verge of death — and brings them to the present. The narrator is an English woman, the daughter of a Cambodian immigrant mother, who works for the agency. The other main character is a member of a doomed 19th Century arctic expedition. It’s a paranormal romance and workplace comedy about generational trauma and colonialism. It tackles important, serious, difficult subjects and is also a great deal of fun.
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“Summerland” by Hannu Rajaniemi. Another British spy agency, this one in an alternate history 1930s, fifty years after paranormal researchers have discovered how to communicate with the dead. The cold war is fought in both our world and the next, and for intelligence operatives, death is just a step up on the career ladder.
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And if you like Stephen King, I highly recommend “11/23/63” and “Under the Dome.”