Gina Apostol is a recipient of two Philippine National Book Awards. Her debut novel, Bibliolepsy, available for the first time in the U.S., is in part set in the context of the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in the mid-eighties, and the artist community in the Philippines, but it’s mostly about reading and writing books. (Hence the title).  The New York Times compares the author’s language to Borges and Nabokov. Except for the latter part of the novel, which unfolds in a more traditional narrative style, I found the language beautiful but the absence of linear plot frustrating. Here’s the full review from The New York Times: