Bookworm book listing

Vivian Wang from the Bookworm recommends the following bestsellers to Beijing Today readers.

A Wild Light
By Marjorie M. Liu, 320pp, Ace, $7.99
For too long Maxine Kiss has felt an inexplicable darkness inside her – a force she channels into hunting the demons bent on destroying the human race. But when she finds herself covered in blood and crouched beside her grandfather’s dead body with no memory of what happened, Maxine begins to fear that the darkness has finally consumed her.

Snakes & Earrings
By Hitmomi Kanehara, 128pp, Plume, $5.54
This novel about a young woman living in the violent world of Japan’s underground youth culture is both shocking and strangely beautiful. Enchanted by the snakelike forked tongue of a stranger called Ama, nineteen- year-old Lui takes a walk on another side of life. Following Ama home the night she meets him, Lui straightaway moves in with him and begins making plans to have her own tongue pierced. Determined to push her boundaries further, she asks Ama’s strange friend Shiba to design an exquisite dragon tattoo for her back. But when Lui and Shiba begin an affair, Ama’s jealousy is stirred and the situation becomes explosive.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
By Mohsin Hamid, 208pp, Harvest Books, $14
Changez is living the American dream. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite valuation firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past.

(By He Jianwei)