-
See Our Summer
Books to Watch!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:A mesmerizing new novel that tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly shaped by their unwitting involvement.
In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself - shadowed and luminous at once - we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing?
A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey - through facts, recollection, and imagination - that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.
Warlight will likely not appeal to all readers, particularly those who have limited patience for a story that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The story may require some effort now and then, but most readers will find it well worth their time. Warlight is now on my list of best books and I heartily recommend it to those who enjoy exceptionally well-written fiction. It's one of the most satisfying novels I've read in a long time...continued
Full Review
(596 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
In Michael Ondaatje's novel Warlight, the narrator assists with "importing a dubious population of unregistered foreign dogs" into England for the sport of dog racing.
Modern dog racing is an outgrowth of an older sport called "coursing," in which dogs hunt game by sight instead of using their sense of smell (hounds as a category are dogs bred to hunt and they generally fall into two categories – sight and scent). Two dogs are raced at a time pursuing one hare and are judged by not only their speed and success in catching the hare, but their ability to turn it, trip it, and kill it. This type of racing, first described by the Greek historian Arrian in 15 CE, became immensely popular in England, Ireland and Scotland during the 16th ...
If you liked Warlight, try these:
by Leo Vardiashvili
Published 2025
Amid rubble and rebuilding in a former Soviet land, one family must rescue one another and put the past to rest: a stirring novel about what happens after the fighting is over
by Helen Klein Ross
Published 2019
A deeply moving family drama about a young Irish immigrant, an ancestral home in New England and a dark secret that lay hidden in its walls for five generations.
 (1).gif)