Book news, reviews and recommendations
First published in Holland in 1947, Gerard Reve’s novel has been ranked by the Society of Dutch Authors as the Netherlands’ best novel of all time – quite a billing to live up to. It was much praised when published in the UK in hardback last year, popping up on all manner of publications’ books […]
The Evenings by Gerard Reve (transl. Sam Garrett): Ennui in post-war Amsterdam Read More »
Eating out is one of my favourite things. It can be sociable or not, a treat in itself or a quick bite before the cinema, something to round off a day on holiday or a step off the interminable wheel of everyday cooking. Whatever the occasion, there’s always a feeling of pleasurable anticipation which is
Eric Beck Rubin’s debut is named after Carl Czerny’s eponymous score, much used by pianists to develop their technical skill so the internet tells me. I wish I could say that piece of knowledge popped into my memory while reading Rubin’s novel but I have to admit to being a musical ignoramus. It does give
School of Velocity by Eric Beck Rubin: Friendship and discord Read More »
This is the first English language novel I’ve read from Pushkin Press, a publisher of whom I’m very fond. Their books are often a little out of the way: Hiromi Kawakami’s dreamlike Record of a Night Too Brief, Auđur Ava Ólafsdóttir’s wacky Butterflies in November and Dorthe Nors’ Mirror, Shoulder, Signal with its out-of-step protagonist,
The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips: Out-Kafkaing Kafka Read More »
I’ve not come across Dorthe Nors’ writing before although the Guardian included her Karate Chop/Minna Needs Rehearsal Space as one of their best books of 2015. It’s possible I dismissed Karate Chop out of hand, not yet having seen the light with regard to short stories, but if Mirror, Shoulder, Signal is anything to go
Hiromi Kawakami’s quietly charming tale of a young, slightly awkward woman and her eccentric colleagues, The Nakano Thrift Shop, was one of my books of last year. It’s written in the same understated style as the rather more melancholic Strange Weather in Tokyo, a style of which I’m particularly fond. Unsurprisingly, I was hoping for
I was drawn to Volker Weidermann’s Summer Before the Dark partly because of its translator, Carol Brown Janeway, who died last year. It was her work which made me understand that the translator is every bit as important as the author when seeking out books in translation. This may well be her last piece of
When I was a bookseller I loathed gift books, those brightly packaged offerings artfully placed by the till in late October to catch Christmas shoppers’ eyes. Rather like the groaning humour table, these piles were usually made up of what I thought of as non-books, most likely unwrapped and tossed aside never to be looked
Found on the Shelves: The acceptable face of gift books Read More »
I’ve spent two Christmases in Berlin – one in the old East in the shadow of the TV tower, the other just inside the old West close to Checkpoint Charlie, now a tourist attraction complete with sentry box. You can’t get away from history in this city, although it’s very much more about the Wall
Red Love by Maxim Leo: Life behind the Berlin Wall Read More »
This is my fourth literary trip to Iceland this year – Hannah Kent’s impressive debut Burial Rites, Sarah Moss’s Names for the Sea and Michel Rostain’s novel/memoir The Son all took me there in one way or another and now Auđur Ava Ólafsdóttir’s quirky novel Butterflies in November. It opens with the killing of a