Book news, reviews and recommendations
Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the others on the […]
Six Degrees of Separation – from The Dry to The Hotel New Hampshire Read More »
You may already know Meike Ziervogel’s name. She’s the founder of Peirene Press who publish three thought-provoking novellas in translation a year, several of which I’ve reviewed on this blog. Flotsam’s not her first book but it’s the first I’ve read by her. Set on the German coast in the 1950s, Ziervogel’s strange, unsettling novella
Flotsam by Meike Ziervogel: More than meets the eye Read More »
We booked a short break back in March thinking that it might be our last chance to join the EU citizen passport queue but once again we were reprieved. Or at least that’s how I think of it. This time we were heading for Genoa, home of two of my favourite things to eat: focaccia
Almost Four Days in Genoa and One Book Read More »
Back from Genoa – of which more on Wednesday – with the second batch of May paperbacks starting with the only one I’ve read. Lena Andersson’s Acts of Infidelity features the same sharply observed protagonist as her witty novella, Wilful Disregard, which I reviewed here a couple of years ago. Once again Ester is in
Paperbacks to Look Out for in May 2019: Part Two Read More »
Rather like April, May’s paperback publishing schedules are chock full of potential delights, some of which I’ve read but most not. I’ll begin with one I haven’t: Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman which constantly popped up in my neck of the Twitter woods in the latter part of last year, lauded by all manner of
Paperbacks to Look Out for in May 2019: Part One Read More »
This is the third novel I’ve read from this year’s Man Booker International Prize longlist. The other two are Hubert Mingarelli’s Four Soldiers, beautifully translated by Sam Taylor, which didn’t make it onto the shortlist, and Olga Tokarczuk’s quirky Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, which did alongside
The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann (transl. Jen Calleja): To the north Read More »
I wrote a post about friendship a little while ago, part of my Five Books I’ve Read series, beginning it by saying how few novels there seemed to be about friendship, and fewer still about male friendship, at least in my reading experience. Paolo Cognetti’s The Eight Mountains offers a corrective to that. At its
May’s second batch of new titles begins with Linda Grant’s A Stranger City which seems to use the discovery of a body in the Thames to explore the nature of community in London, or the lack of it, through a policeman, a nurse and a documentary-maker. ‘The wonderful Linda Grant weaves a tale around ideas
Books to Look Out for in May 2019: Part Two Read More »
Given my weakness for small town American novels and an immigration theme I had a shrewd idea I’d enjoy Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans just from its title. It explores the fallout from a hit and run accident which kills Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant who had been running his restaurant in the Californian desert
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami: Modern America in the Mojave Read More »
I finished my review of Jen Beagin’s sharp, funny Pretend I’m Dead happily anticipating what she might come up with next. What I wasn’t expecting was a sequel. Two years after the love of her life disappeared, Mona’s finding herself becoming more intimate with her clients and not necessarily in a good way. Mona’s still
Vacuum in the Dark by Jen Beagin: Mona reprised Read More »
April was a wee bit light on new titles for me, making up for it with a plethora of paperbacks to keep an eye on. In contrast May sees me spoilt for choice with a very attempting array of new novels on offer beginning with Jessica Andrews’ debut, Saltwater, which follows a young woman from
Books to Look Out for in May 2019: Part One Read More »