The Bibliophile's Compass

Title : Then the Fish Swallowed Him Author : Amir Ahmadi Arian Publication Year : 2020 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 288 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : historical fiction, Iranian fiction, political fiction I cannot decide whether this is a 3.5-star or 4-star book, which feels strangely appropriate for a novel that left me unsettled rather than satisfied. Let’s start with the title and cover, because I was deeply curious about them. Then the Fish Swallowed Him immediately calls to mind the story of Jonah, the prophet swallowed by a fish until he learns his lesson and returns to the right path. Here, the main character is named Yunus — aka Jonah — and the parallel feels painfully ironic. Or maybe irony is too soft a word for it. I believe the author somehow subverts the story, though I am not entirely sure how to name it. If we consider Yunus as Jonah and the solitary cell as the fish, then what does that leave the despotic system to be? Yunus Turabi is an ordinary man: a bus ...

Title : Artful Author : Ali Smith Publication Year : 2012 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 203 Source : book Genre : literary fiction, nonfiction Awards : Best Book of Ideas Prize (2013), Goldsmiths Prize Nominee (2013) I take genre and classification very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. If a book is marketed as fiction and I open it expecting a novel, but suddenly find myself attending a lecture series, I feel not merely surprised — I feel personally betrayed by publishing. I usually don’t check too many details before reading a book, unless I get so confused within the first few pages that I have to investigate like a literary detective. Otherwise, there will be confusion, frustration, and a significant amount of cursing from the reading chair. Anyway, I picked up Artful thinking I was about to read a novel. How wrong could I be? Apparently: very. It started beautifully. The grief pulled me in immediately, and I was ready to be devastated in a controlled, literary way. But then, s...

Title : Don’t Let Him In Author : Lisa Jewell Publication Year : 2025 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (fun rating) Pages : 361 Duration : 12 hrs 15 mins Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : mystery, thriller Awards : Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense (2026), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Mystery/Thriller (2025), She Reads Best of Award Nominee for Audiobook (2025) There are books with unlikeable characters… and then there are books where you actively, passionately wish fictional death upon them. Don’t Let Him In is very much in the second category. The “him” in the title is so repulsive that I’m convinced the only appropriate justice would be every woman he abused or killed taking a turn. Individually. Repeatedly. Let’s just say: maximum consequences. Anything less feels disappointingly mild. And this is coming from a pacifist. I hated every single relationship in this book so much that I kept reading purely to make sure he got what he deserved. He does get some kind of comeuppance, ...

Title : Departure[s] Author : Julian Barnes Publication Yea r: 2025 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 165 Source : ebook Genre : literary fiction, essay, memoir First, please do not judge me for saying this is my first 2026 release. I will not be taking questions about why. Let’s just say it feels very ironic that my first 2026 book is Departure[s] and that by the time I read the last word, I was emotionally very far from where I started. How did I choose it? Simple rule: if Julian Barnes writes, I read even if I arrive late. This round, Barnes beat out Winterson, Mary Costello, Douglas Stuart, Caro Claire Burke, and Ann Patchett. They will cope. I picked up the book (well, tablet), saw "Julian Barnes," and, in my usual responsible fashion, did not bother to check the genre, topic, or anything resembling context. A few pages in, I started thinking: this doesn’t feel like a novel; this feels like an essay or a lecture on memory, illness, and Proust. Which, to be clear, I love. ...

Title : Ella Minnow Pea Author : Mark Dunn Publication Yea r: 2001 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 208 Source : ebook Genre : Dystopia, YA, Humor, Literary Fiction Awards : Borders Original Voices Award for Fiction (2001) Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn is marketed as a cute little dystopian novel about a linguistically sophisticated island that worships some alleged language saint and then, thanks to “divine” nonsense and authoritarian ego, slowly bans its own alphabet. Letters literally fall from a monument, and every time one falls, that letter is outlawed from speech and writing. Yes, in a society built on language, they decide to legally strangle language. Genius. Flawless satire. It’s told entirely through letters (of the postal kind, not just the alphabet), as citizens write to each other while their vocabulary is gradually murdered. The premise? Fantastic. The idea of watching communication collapse in real time? Brilliant. The ending? Honestly, great. On paper, this is a solid ⭐...

Title : Em Author : Kim Thúy Translator : Sheila Fischman Publication Year : 2020 published; 2021 translated Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 160 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, historical fiction, trauma fiction, war fiction Awards : Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2021), Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2023) Em by Kim Thúy is the story of lost lives, lands, chances, and even plants, all marked and disfigured by the atrocities of the Vietnam War. The novel moves through the lives of those on the front lines — mostly victims and a few perpetrators — without ever whitewashing what was done or what was endured. Although the story moves among many different characters, they are all woven together through family ties, adoption, and destiny. It also traces those who leave their more comfortable lives behind to cross the world in the hope of making a difference. Every fragment is rooted in historical fact; each chapter feels like a distilled moment, a ...

Title : Black Water Author : Joyce Carol Oates Publication Year : 1992 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 160 Source : physical book from the UNI library Genre : literary fiction, historical fiction Awards : Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Fiction (1993), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (1992) Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates follows Kelly Kelleher, a young woman whose brief connection with a famous U.S. Senator leads to the final, devastating moments of her life. The novel is historical fiction, inspired by a real person, a real senator, and a deeply heartbreaking event. But Kelly is not only Kelly. She also becomes a symbol of larger national disillusionment. Her loss of faith in the idea of the United States after the recent elections feels strikingly familiar, which is both impressive and deeply depressing. Even in the 1990s, she embodied an image of a country sinking under the weight of its own political failures. The novel suggests that no one is coming to save it...

Title : Potentially True Stories Of a Girls/Girl Burlesque Jazz Group (Audiobook/EP Combo) Artist/Author : Inappropriate Jazz & Tiffany Grace Devereaux Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Source : Audiobook Genre : Gritty Noir Storytelling, Burlesque Jazz, Dark Humor, Audio Theater So, ladies—oops, my bad. Let me start again. Hey, “grown a f***ing women” — I’m just quoting, so please don’t report me to HR. Have you seen this album/audiobook by Inappropriate Jazz? Because I have been listening to it on repeat like it contains classified instructions for surviving womanhood. Honestly, this might be an anthem. A manifesto. A public service announcement with rhythm. The project by Inappropriate Jazz isn't just a standard audiobook or a typical music album; it's a dedicated multi-media genre-blend designed to accompany their companion production piece, Potentially True Stories Of a Girls Girl Burlesque Jazz Group. The creator purposefully mixed gritty noir storytelling, smoky audio theater,...

Title : Pearl Author : Siân Hughes Publication Year: 2023 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 220 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, coming-of-age Awards : Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2023) Pearl, inspired by the medieval poem of the same name, is a quiet, haunting, and deeply affecting story about Marianne, whose mother leaves the house one day and never returns. Marianne narrates her loss, grief, guilt, and trauma through two distinct voices. One belongs to the Marianne of the past, who experiences abandonment and sorrow as a child; the other belongs to the Marianne of the present, who reflects on those events with the weight of memory and understanding. This dual perspective is one of the novel’s greatest strengths. Through it, we encounter both the raw innocence of a child trying to make sense of the unbearable and the adult who is still living with the consequences of that absence. Marianne’s childhood world is so sorrowful and fragile that at times you ...

Title : Girl Meets Boy Author : Ali Smith Publication Year : 2007 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 164 Source : book Genre : literary fiction, queer, retelling of myth Awards : James Tiptree Jr. Award Nominee (2008) Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy (2007) is a little different from her other works, mostly because it does not require a diagram, a therapist, and three separate timelines to understand what is happening. The time, narration, and events are relatively straightforward, and the ending has the distinct air of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: everyone is floating toward harmony, transformation, and communal joy. Suspicious behavior, frankly. Because of that—and because it contains a little too much romance for my emotionally bankrupt literary taste—I am not a huge fan of this very small book. Apparently, what I want from literature is misery, confusion, trauma, grief, existential dread, and at least one narrative structure that makes me question my own eyesight. Happiness? Res...

Title : Like a Love Story Author : Abdi Nazemian Publication Year : 2019 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 432 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, coming-of-age, queer, historical fiction, romance, young adult, LGBT Like a Love Story Abdi Nazemian’s book follows three friends — Reza, Judy, and Art — three outsider teenagers trying to survive high school, family expectations, first loves, and the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York. Reza is still navigating his sexuality and is not yet out, while Art is openly gay and politically active, refusing to hide himself even in a deeply homophobic and frightening historical moment. There was a great deal I appreciated in this novel. First, I found Nazemian’s portrayal of Reza, an Iranian immigrant who moved from Iran to Canada and then Canada, adjusting to a new life in America, especially moving. Reza has to navigate a new country, a new school, a new stepfather and stepbrother, and, most importantly, the painful process of under...

Title : The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye Author : A.S. Byatt Publication Year : 1994 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 288 Source : ebook Genre : fairy tale, mythology, retelling A.S. Byatt’s The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye is a collection of fairy-tale retellings, many of which were originally published as parts of her other works. If I were rating the book based only on the first four stories, I would have gently placed it in the 2–3 star zone, closed the book, and gone off to stare dramatically out a window. I don’t just like retellings of fables, myths, and fairy tales — I love them. But I love them most when they are not dragged into the room by force, handed a microphone, and told, “Now give voice to the voiceless, immediately.” I especially love them when they parody the originals, because parody lets authors roast the past, the present, and possibly the future. As long as I am not the roastee, I am game. The first four stories, however, were… fine. Simple. Quiet. A littl...

Title : On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) Author : Solvej Balle Publication Year : 2024 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 176 Source : ebook Genre : literary fiction, philosophical fiction Awards : Winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle is a short, peculiar little book — “little” in the same way a black hole is little. Technically compact, yes, but once you’re inside, time stretches, reality collapses, and you begin questioning your sanity. At first, the title is terrifying. On the Calculation of Volume sounds like the sort of book that might suddenly ask you to solve for x or explain fluid dynamics. You think, “Please, God, don’t let this be about mathematics or physics.” Then you read the first parts, figure out what is actually happening, and immediately think, “You know what? Maybe mathematics would have been kinder.” That said, I absolutely loved the premise. I am a ...

Title : There But For The Author : Ali Smith Publication Year : 2011 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 288 Source : ebook Genre : literary fiction, queer Awards : longlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction There But For The is Ali Smith’s fifth novel, starring a man named Miles Garth, an "ethical consultant" who decides the most ethical thing he can do is…lock himself in a spare room in a stranger’s house and stay there. For a long time. Why does he do it? Why does he stop doing it? Smith refuses to tell us in any straightforward way, and as someone who agrees with Katherine Mansfield’s “I hate mystery” (quoted in epigraph), I was not exactly thrilled to be handed this particular knot and told, “Enjoy!” The book quickly wanders away from its human hermit and starts circling the lives of people who crossed paths with Miles at some point. He becomes less a character and more a rumor, the novel once heard and is still thinking about. Through them, Smith ruminates on time, sp...

Title : Women without Men Author : Shahrnush Parsipur Publication Year: 1989 (translation 1998, 2011, 2026) Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 Pages : 192 Source : ebook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, Magical Realism Awards : longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women Without Men creates a magical world where the supernatural and the real intertwine to expose how women in 1950s Iran are suffocated by patriarchy, religion, and the confines of the domestic sphere. The novel follows five women from different social backgrounds whose paths converge in a garden in Karaj. Each woman suffers under patriarchy in a distinct way and each ultimately takes a different path and reaches a different kind of ending. The book does offer a form of closure for each character, but not an easy or triumphant emancipation. Some remain entangled in, or even complicit with, patriarchal structures—either by internalizing them or learning to manipulate them for survival. What I ...

Title : The Story of Antigone Author : Ali Smith Publication Year : 2011 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 100 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : retelling, Greek Mythology, Historical fiction, YA, Children Who better than Ali Smith to give Greek mythology a cheeky twist, turning it on its head by letting a crow do the talking and a dog sit quietly, presumably thinking about snacks? In this wild retelling, we, the readers, are mere spectators in a feathery soap opera where a mama crow narrates the story of Antigone to the dog (not us). It’s such an unconventional choice that you might forget you are navigating a tragedy—until you find yourself laughing at the crow's perspective on humans. They seem so dramatic and tragic, yet the crow can't help but wonder how delicious they would be if only they weren’t so busy wallowing in their own misery! After reading a few of Ali Smith’s books, I thought I had a grasp on her quirky style and themes. But just when I felt like I was in the...

Title : The Deal of a Lifetime Author : Fredrik Backman Publication Year : 2017 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 65 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, novella I’ll keep this short, just like the book itself. I listened to the audiobook while trying to stay awake amidst the turbulence of my exhaustion—and I might’ve dozed off about 13 times. When I finally came to, I realized I had accidentally finished it. Oops! From what I can piece together—like a jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces—it was an emotional saga about a guy who was seriously considering sacrificing his existence to save a random kid. I mean, talk about overthinking things! It's all very touching, but honestly, it felt flatter than my plane seat after a long flight. So, that’s about it!

Title : A Long Winter Author : Colm Tóibín Publication Year : 2006 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 144 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : literary fiction, historical fiction, novella I picked up A Long Winter because I needed a short audiobook for a trip. The audiobook was short. The winter inside it was not. It felt endless. This is one of those compact Irish novels/novellas where nothing is wasted and nothing lets you breathe. In a small village in the Catalan Pyrenees, Miquel’s mother disappears into the snow and never returns. Everyone more or less agrees she is dead, somewhere under the drifts, and life is simply expected to continue. Miquel and his father are left to endure a winter that feels more like a sentence than a season. The language is stripped down, almost bare, but every line carries an impossible weight. Grief is not announced; it just seeps into everything. The poverty, the broken family, the silence between father and son, the isolation, the sense that nothing ...

Title : Companion Piece Author : Ali Smith Publication Year : 2022 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 230 Source : book Genre : literary fiction, COVID, Pandemic Ali Smith’s Companion Piece (2022) is very much a COVID novel—but, being Ali Smith, it’s also absolutely not just a COVID novel. Our main character, Sandy Gray (Sand), is a kind of awkward, artsy nerd trying to deal with her father’s hospitalization right in the middle of the pandemic. So yes, there are masks and lockdowns and hospitals, but there’s also Smith doing what Smith does best: taking the narrative, twisting it into a Möbius strip, and then asking you to walk on it in the dark. This is peak Smithian territory: strange timelines, slippery characters, and a narrator you’re never entirely sure you should trust. Here she pushes it even further—so far that you start wondering whether all of it actually happened. Did Sand really experience that bizarre intrusion of the past? Or is she just inventing stories to survive the suf...

Title : Project Hail Mary Author : Andy Weir Publication Year: 2021 Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pages : 496 Source : audiobook @storytel.tr Genre : science fiction Awards : winner of the Dragon Award, Goodreads Choice Awards, Audie Award, & Seiun Award Best Translated Long Work; Finalist for the Canopus Award, Hugo Award, Xingyun Award, & Premio Italia International Science Fiction Novel Finally, I listened to PHM and joined the fan club. This book is ridiculous levels of fun. Our main guy, Ryland Grace, is basically a Deadpool-ish chaos ex-academic now a high school teacher, but with actual degrees, better manners, and a lab coat. He’s wildly scientific, absurdly resourceful, and somehow still spends half the book roasting himself so hard I was giggling out loud. The two “voices” of Grace—especially the self-deprecating one—had me belly-laughing while he’s out there, you know, casually trying to stop the end of the world on an interstellar field trip. Did I immensely enjoy the b...