Today in Bookish and Literary History, January 11

 1709 Rival Fools by Colley Cibber - UK

1885 The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen - Norway

The story centers around the secrets and dramas of the Ekdal family, who live a dysfunctional life in purposeful denial of the many skeletons that lurk in their respective closets. Their delusional, but comforting, existence is interrupted by the reappearance of family friend Gregers Werle, an idealistic young man who values honesty and absolute truth above all other concerns.

2018 The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman - FR

With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor, and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mother’s dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to surrender, and finally move on.

• Longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize

2022 To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara - US

To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love—partners, lovers, children, friends, family, and even our fellow citizens—and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

2022 The Stars Are Not Yet Bells by Hannah Lillith Assadi - US

Through the scrim of fading memory, an elderly woman confronts a lifetime of secrets and betrayal, under the mysterious skies of her island home

2022 Shit Cassandra Saw: Stories by Gwen E. Kirby - US

Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today.

2024 Hyper by Agri Ismaïl - Sweden

When Rafiq Kermanj, founder of the Kurdish Communist Party, is forced to flee Tehran for London with his conservative wife Xezal and three children, they suffer the shame of penury and migration layered on Kurdish statelessness.