Book news, reviews and recommendations
Back from my travels, more of which next week, with one I’ve been eagerly anticipating for some time. When I reviewed Jhumpa Lahiri’s beautiful novella Whereabouts, an Italian reader kindly left a detailed comment describing his response to her translation of the book, which she had originally written in Italian, mentioning that a volume of […]
Back in 2017 I reviewed Domenico Starnone’s Ties, remarking on its explosive opening letters from a furious wife to her unfaithful husband. It was Jhumpa Lahiri’s translation that attracted me to the novel but it was my enjoyment of it that made me put my hand up for Trust. As Lahiri notes in her afterword,
Trust by Domenico Starnone (transl. Jhumpa Lahiri): A life in three parts Read More »
I was attracted to Marco Missiroli’s Fidelity by its title thinking it might make an interesting companion to Sue Miller’s Monogamy which I so enjoyed last year. That and its jacket with those eyes staring so directly at the camera. Set in Milan, it spans nine years in the lives of a husband and wife,
Fidelity by Marco Missiroli (transl. Alex Valente): ‘I am happy right here’ 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
I seem to have reviewed several books about marriage in the first few months of this year – from the comparatively happy Wait for Me, Jack, to the decidedly bleak First Love, to the seemingly inextricable entanglement of A Separation – each one very different from the other, as are relationships of course. Domenico Starnone’s
Ties by Domenico Starnone (transl. Jhumpa Lahiri): Three sides of a marriage Read More »