Set in Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s, during the waning years of Communist rule, Martin M. Simecka's startlingly original first novel, The Year of the Frog,

Dominic the dragon befriends a boy named Bo as well as the other eleven animals of the Chinese lunar calendar and helps them enter the annual village boat race.

The Year of The Frog candidly portrays the struggle a woman in her forties went through trying to do everything perfectly to fit into a society entrenched with

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP BOOK OF 2015 WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK The author of Red Sorghum and China’s most revered and controversial novelist returns with his

“A huge, beautiful compendium of 600 frogs from around the world, from the famed poison-arrow variety on up to the intriguingly named plaintive rain frog.”