Every year at about this time I focus my reading on a single country and read around twenty books from that country. This year the winner is.the CzechRepublic/Czechia, though some of the books were published when the country was still part of Czechoslovakia. I do not intend to give a potted history of Czech literature. … Read more
As expected, I read fewer books this year (73 books at an average of 263 pages)fewer than previous years for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons, I have to admit, is that I’ve been spending far too much time doomscrolling, as the world seems to be falling apart around us. My annual marathon … Read more
For various reasons, including the fact that it does not have much of an audience, I have discontinued posting new entries to my website here. I will occasionally log on other issues but that won’t be very frequent. If you want to know about you interest to the website you can check on my X./Twitter … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Chrysoula Georgoula‘s Λέγε με Στράτο (Call Me Stratos). The eponymous Stratos is a man of many faults but he does work hard. He had been working successfully as a roofer when working in the construction industry dried up he opened a car wash. His faults include drinking too … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Krisztina Tóth‘s A majom szeme ( Reading The Eye of the Monkey), . Tóth has had to leave Hungary for political reasons. This is a dystopian novel about a country called the uUified Regency which is clearly based on Hungary. Giselle, a university lecturerer in history in a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Bora Ćosić‘s Uloga moje porodice u svetskoj revoluciji (My Family’s Role in the World Revolution and Other Prose). The main story tells of Ćosić’s family living in Belgrade in World War II. The mother is paranoid and disorganised, the father a drunk who cannot hold a job, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tayib Salih>’s وسم الهجرة إلى الشمال (Season of Migration to the North) . The narrator, a Sudanese man who has been studying in London has returned home to his native village in Sudan where he meets Mustafa, who moved to the village five years ago, has married and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sultan Raev‘s Жанжаза (Castigation). This a Kyrgyz novel set in the post Soviet era. It involves seven people who escape from a mental institution and cross the desert with a view to reaching the HolyLand. Unfortunately, the leader, who claims to know the way to the Holy Land, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Tant mieux [So Much the Better]. Our heroine is Adrienne, aged four in 1942 when she is sent to stay with her evil grandmother who treats her badly ill The grandmother finds that her cat is very fond ofAdrienne. ofAdrienne later learns that her mother and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dragan Velikić‘s Islednik (The Investigator). This is an autobiographical novel and the narrator tells us about his life, and in particular life of his mother and her friend Lizeta going back to well before his birth up to the present time. His mother is obsessed with keeping details … Read more