Book news, reviews and recommendations
When I included Moonstone in one of my June previews I was surprised when several people picked up on it, already acquainted with Sjón’s writing either through a previous novel or from songs he’d written with Björk. He’s a talented guy: an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright and librettist. I wish I could say that I […]
Moonstone by Sjón (transl. Victoria Cribb): The Boy Who Never Was Read More »
In the very early days of this blog I reviewed Judith Hermann’s beautifully put together set of interlinked short stories, Alice, under the banner ‘Small but Perfectly Formed’. The same heading could stand for her new novel, Where Love Begins, although its subject matter is quite different. Alice explored grief and how we endure it,
I already had Lena Andersson’s Wilful Disregard in my sights but when Charlotte Collins, translator of the excellent A Whole Life, left a comment praising it to the skies on my January paperback preview it zoomed up my list. She called it ‘the cleverest dissection of misguided obsession that I’ve ever read’, a spot on
Jacqui from JacquiWine’s Journal commented on my books to look out for in December post that Three Light-Years’ jacket seemed to fit its synopsis well: a grey, rainy day in which a woman is looking over her shoulder at a man, her expression a little solemn but unreadable. We can’t see his but it should
Three Light-Years by Andrea Canobbio (transl. Anne Milano Appel): A love story Read More »
I have to admit to picking this up because it’s Swedish. I read it during what seemed to be a period of deep virtual immersion in Scandiland – watching the first series of The Legacy re-watching Borgen and reading Martin Booth’s excellent The Almost Nearly Perfect People squarely aimed at people like me who have
A Summer with Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser (transl. Saskia Vogel): A Swedish period piece Read More »
I’m always a little uncomfortable when I get a review copy from a small publisher. I can’t guarantee that I’ll review it unless I think it’s worth recommending and those books cost money, time and effort to post out. It’s easy shrugging off the likes of Penguin Random House but small presses prick my conscience,
This is the first novel I’ve read by the famously reclusive Nobel Prize-winning Patrick Modiano. He’s been on my list since I read Victoria’s excellent piece on him at Tales from the Reading Room. He also made a little cameo appearance in The Red Notebook which I read a little while ago and when So
A couple of years ago I picked up Grégoire Delacourt’s The List of My Desires to read on a train on my way to meet a friend. It looked a little fluffy but the synopsis was attractive and I thought it would suit if there were no seats in the quiet carriage. I polished it
I’d not heard of Maylis de Kerangal before I came across Birth of a Bridge which says more about my ignorance than her obscurity as the novel comes garlanded with praise from all and sundry. It also won the 2010 Prix Médicis, adding to several other literary prizes awarded to her. All this is should
Birth of a Bridge by Maylis de Kerangal (transl. Jessica Moore): All human life is here Read More »
There’s something very attractive about a slim novel which encapsulates the life of an ordinary person, someone whose life might well be judged narrow by those who stride across the world’s stage. Mary Costello’s very fine Academy Street springs to mind – I’m still trying to work out why it failed to appear on the
Perhaps it’s because those of us in the privileged developed world are living longer – that and the advent of a new century – but there seems to be a little trend for novels written from the point of view of a centenarian bystander, someone who’s rubbed shoulders with those who’ve shaped our world for