A semi-autobiographical novel that shares a title with a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel, The Idiot is a bildungsroman that tells the story of Selin, a Turkish American college freshman, attending Harvard University in the 1990s and falling desperately and confusingly in love with a Hungarian mathematics student, Ivan. An intriguing, funny and unusual look at love, language, and one person's quest for meaning, there's a lot to unpack - which we do, in this book club episode with Alia Zefri, who recommended the novel to us.

Image Source: Public Books