Few witches in literary history have been as influential—or as maligned—as Morgan le Fay. To understand Morgan le Fay is thus to understand something of the nature of witches’ and witchcraft’s literary representation as a whole.

Devastatingly, Tove Ditlevsen’s three-part memoir suggests that acquiring a room of one’s own and becoming a successful writer does not preclude sharing the fate of one’s mother.

Told in lyrical, first-person fragments as lush, brutal, and self-contained as the island itself, Meghan Gilliss’ debut novel’s remote setting occasions an extended study of isolation—the isolating effects of early motherhood, of food scarcity and substance use, and finally, of secrets kept from one’s self and loved ones.

The final book in Hilary Mantel’s award-winning trilogy completes the suggestion that time is the mirror in which we see ourselves, and that the uncertain reflections we cast change according to the source and quality of the light.

Wislawa Szymborska and Alejandro Zambra use the book review as a vehicle to convey something closer to poetry. They content themselves to leave each review with a feeling or mood, rather than an appraisal of a work.