Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
This week, all three were profiled in Susan’s November 2019 ‘Books to Look Out For’ selections.
Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe
Summary: Berlin, 1928: a photographer captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich; Anna May Wong, the world’s first Chinese American star; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director would first make her famous and then, infamous. The story follows the trajectories of these women’s lives.
I’m thinking: No (suspect I was wooed by the cover).
Oligarchy by Scarlett Thomas
Summary: When Natasha, daughter of a Russian oligarch, arrives for her first day at an all-girl boarding school, she finds herself thrown into a world of fierce pecking orders, eating disorders and Instagram angst. Then her friend Bianca mysteriously vanishes, and the world of the school gets ever darker and stranger.
I’m thinking: Yes (love campus-lit).
Love by Hanne Ørstavik
Summary: Vibeke and he son Jon have just moved to a small place in the north of Norway. One evening, Jon goes out to sell lottery tickets for his sports club, and Vibeke goes to the library. As they make their separate journeys through a cold winter’s night, a sense of uneasiness grows.
I’m thinking: Maybe.