Recommended by Ian Thal

The last two Jews of Kabul live together in the last synagogue of Kabul, and though they hate one another they decide to write their own Torah to replace the one stolen by the Taliban, what follows are debates about masturbation, lesbians, and eating animals not mentioned in the Torah. In the streets the Taliban deal in violence. Inside the synagogue Ishaq and Zeblyan deal in slapstick, and in their debates the vulgar and sacred meet, and yet, this too, is Torah.

Yee's "Cambodian Rock Band" celebrates both the musicians that the Khmer Rouge murdered and the music that survived, communicating in a way that statistics and archives don't always do the vibrant and visceral popular culture that was killed in the first genocide of the rock'n'roll era.

In this intimate epic, two friends recount the time their regular Sunday boating excursion met the disaster that nearly cost them their lives. Was it the ecological and economic devastation hitting the coastline? Freak weather conditions? Sailing while under the influence? Or an unnamable cosmic horror? Svich's free verse style may be challenging, but for an imaginative director and cast, and an audience willing to embark on the voyage, the challenge is rewarding.

Anyone who has been drawn into somebody else's eccentric (or poorly thought out) special funerary requests will get a cathartic release of laughter from this taboo-breaking road-trip frenemy comedy. In the end it's not just about desecrating living celebrities with human remains but the friends we make along the way.

I just listened to "Ain't the Biggest City" on the Gather By The Ghost Light podcast. Rushing has created a a tense noir drama in which Lane, his heroine's personal sense of justice comes into conflict with her professional duties, and when her conflict arouses the suspicions of Officer McAllen, will it be the long arm of the law that reaches out for her, or the secret handshake of a conspiracy that has its own sense of justice?

If granted supernatural powers most people would be neither heroes nor villains and that's the case with Sam a post-mortem photographer with the power to raise the dead if for just several minutes. Perhaps he can offer some compassion and closure in that fleeting reprieve from death, but what if he could solve a crime?

Masha Pavlov is an engaging character, proud of her role as a light bomber pilot fighting back the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and still excited to describe the giddiness of flight and the machines that took her into the air, even as she recounts the humiliation of official misogyny, ill-fitting uniforms, antiquated technology, no parachutes, the death of many of her fellow Night Witches, and a state that swept their heroism under the rug once the war was over.

A clever short story that combines both the motif of the musician who makes a pact with the devil and the trickster who outwits the devil with the added twist of a revenge drama, there's a good sense of place and time and characters who present a real battle of wits.

A claustrophobic thriller set 10,500 meters below sea level. The characters are so well-sketched out with family, thoughts of their next meal, their wonder at the previously unexplored realms of the ocean depths, that it amplifies the suspense they experience. The performances and sound-design on the "Gather by the Ghostlight" podcast are particularly excellent.

The comedy keeps escalating as the protagonist cannot recognize the noir tropes of mistaken identity, double-crosses, amorality and corruption that interrupt his attempt to contemplate his life choices and refuse any call to action.