Today in Bookish and Literary History, November 25

2009 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

  • Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize
  • Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature
  • Shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.

2025 As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel (UK)

An inventive and romantic speculative novel about two women—a witch and an immortal demon—who make a Faustian bargain and are drawn into a cat-and-mouse chase across multiple lifetimes.

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