Han Kang and Julian Barnes Reviews

Han Kang's "Light and Thread" is her first non-fiction book to be published in English and includes her 2024 Nobel Prize lecture. The collection of essays, poems, photographs, and diary entries explores the "gold thread" of connection she first imagined in a poem at eight years old. The book centers on the small, north-facing courtyard garden at her home, which she cultivates using only the reflected sunlight from mirrors she must move throughout the day. First published in Korea in April 2025, it sold 10,000 copies on its first day. Julian Barnes' "Departures" is being described as his final book, released ahead of his 80th birthday. The work is a blend of fiction and memoir, exploring themes of love, memory, and mortality. It also touches on his own diagnosis with a manageable but incurable blood cancer. The novel's narrator, a writer also named Julian, recounts the story of two friends, Stephen and Jean, whose love affair he orchestrates in their youth and helps rekindle forty years later. Barnes had promised them he would never write about their story. David Greig’s novel, titled "The Book of I," is set on the Scottish island of Iona in the year 825 AD following a brutal Viking raid. The plot follows the three lone survivors: a young Christian monk named Martin, a female beekeeper named Una, and an aging pagan Norseman, Grimur, who was left for dead by his fellow raiders. The story examines the community that forms between these three characters from opposing cultures, exploring themes of faith, guilt, and redemption as they navigate survival. Meghan O'Gieblyn's review frames the novel as a brilliant exploration of the tension between ancient myths and a world where faith is receding.