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Books reviewed by Claire McAlpine at BookBrowse.

Claire McAlpine

Originally from New Zealand, Claire lives in Aix-en-Provence, teaching English at the Université d'Aix Marseille and working as a professional Aromatherapist. She has written reviews for The Guardian and FWSA (Feminist and Women’s Studies Association) and writes regularly at Word by Word.

Claire likes to read cross cultural fiction and non-fiction, works that take us out of our own cultural experience into another, or that give us an alternative perspective on how we appear to the outsider. A third of the books she reads are translated. Raised on a 1600 acre sheep farm that was a location for The Lord of the Rings, she appreciates a hint of magic realism, nature writing and memoir. You can find her at clairemca.wordpress.com and flairesse.com

Books reviewed by Claire McAlpine

Salt Houses (05/17/17)
The Dry (02/01/17)
The Ballroom (10/19/16)
Barkskins (07/13/16)
Paint Your Wife (04/20/16)

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

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