Book news, reviews and recommendations
Back from a short break in Lyme Regis (more of which later in the week) with a second batch of October fiction which begins with a novel that didn’t quite fulfil my hopes. Set in the rain-soaked coastal community of Faha in December 1962, Time of the Child is a sequel of sorts to This […]
Books to Look Out For in October 2024: Part Two Read More »
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 others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list,
Six Degrees of Separation – The Naked Chef to Mailman Read More »
I’m sure it’s a statement of the obvious for more seasoned readers of translated fiction but I’ve learned to check the translator’s name when choosing what to read. Out of the five novels below, four are translated by particular favourites of mine – two by Charlotte Collins and two by Jamie Bulloch – although I’m
Five Novels I’ve Read Translated from German Read More »
The second part of March’s paperback preview begins with two novels on an art theme: one I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed; the other I haven’t but it comes highly recommended. Maylis de Kerangal’s Painting Time follows one of three students who meet in Brussels while on a trompe l’œil course. Paula shares her small apartment
Paperbacks to Look Out For in March 2022: Part Two Read More »
Back in 2015, I reviewed Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life, a beautifully written novella about a man who’d barely left his mountain hamlet, revealing the richness of even the simplest of lives. The following year’s The Tobacconist, set in Vienna in the months before Hitler annexed Austria, was equally striking raising high hopes for his
The Field by Robert Seethaler (transl. Charlotte Collins: Giving voice to the dead Read More »
The first part of March’s fiction preview began with three novels I’d already read whereas in this part there’s just the one: Claire Fuller’s Unsettled Ground. I’ve long been a fan of Fuller’s writing. Each of her novels – Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons and Bitter Orange – is different from the others. This
Books to Look Out for in March 2021: Part Two Read More »
Walking is the thing that’s helped keep me sane – so far – throughout the pandemic. That and blogging with its virtual community, still there when I can’t see my other friends. I’ve resisted using the term ‘lockdown’ because, for me, that would have meant the end of the permitted daily exercise outside the house
I’m sure there’s going to be more than one of these posts, particularly given Madame Bibliophile Recommends’ novella a day back in May 2018 , then this year’s selection lengthened my tbr list. The first task is to define a novella, something which varies from reader to reader, but for the purposes of this post
Five Novellas I’ve Read Read More »
A mere handful of November paperbacks after a very satisfying two-part new title preview, but all four look pretty enticing to me beginning with Walter Kempowski’s Homeland which opens in 1988, the year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A journalist living in West Berlin is commissioned to write a piece about the former
Paperbacks to Look Out For in November 2019 Read More »
I had my eye on this one as soon as I saw that it was translated by the excellent Charlotte Collins, although I think I would have read it anyway. Set against a backdrop of privilege and entitlement, Takis Würger’s The Club follows Hans, a young German orphan whose estranged aunt has spotted a way
The Club by Takis Würger (transl. Charlotte Collins): All too believable Read More »
Spring, which seems so far away now, was a particularly good reading time for me hence this bumper post. March began with Donal Ryan’s From a Low and Quiet Sea, a carefully crafted, moving novella which explores love, loss and connection through the stories of three very different men, bringing them neatly together at its
Books of the Year 2018: Part Two Read More »