The Turning Page

Six books to bring some joy into your life this winter.

- By ANWESH BANERJEE

As a reader, I usually steer clear of speculative fiction. But when a novel set in a future, climate-ravaged Kolkata (my beloved hometown) appears—and gets selected for Oprah Winfrey's 119th Book Club—I'm forced to make exceptions. The truth is, I finished Megha Majumdar’s sophomore book (in many ways a spiritual distant cousin of Amitav Ghosh’s 2004 novel The Hungry Tide), titled A Guardian and A Thief, in a single sitting. The novel follows Ma, her father Dadu, and her daughter Mishti as they survive in a flooded City of Joy, facing food shortages while awaiting their “climate visas” to emigrate to Michigan and join Ma’s husband as climate refugees. Chaos erupts when Ma’s purse containing all their documents is stolen by Boomba, a man who will do anything to feed his family. Profound yet racy, the novel spans seven days and shifts perspectives between characters as the eponymous guardian and thief test the limits of their morality in the face of a dying planet and a desperate love for their helpless families.

For those of us who spend a ridiculous amount of time doomscrolling through BookTok and Bookstagram, the name Carol Bolt is hardly unfamiliar. After the success of Book of Answers (my copy still lives by my bedside), the Seattle-based artist returns with another coffee-table hardcover that promises to answer every question a reader has about love. Drawing from the divination art of bibliomancy,