The latest addition to my website is Adam Foulds‘ The Quickening Maze. This a story about the poet John Clare and, to a much lesser degree, the poet Alfred Tennyson. Clare spent much of his adult life in asylums. This one tells of his time in an asylum in Essex, managed by Matthew Allen. Also … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Arnon Grunberg‘s Fantoompijn (Phantom Pain). This is a very funny book about a writer, Robert G Mehlman, who is arrogant, irresponsible, unfaithful to his wife, dishonest, lazy, greedy and utterly self-centred but a moderately successful writer. We follow both his past life as well as getting some detailed … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Donna Tartt‘s The Goldfinch, her third novel in twenty-one years. This one is another large novel – 800 pages – with undertones of violence and a fantastic read. It has been criticised by some for being a Harry Potter for adults but that is, in my view, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hubert Aquin‘s Prochain épisode (Next Episode), Aquin’s first novel and the only one of his works to be translated into English. Aquin wrote this novel when he was detained in a mental institution after having being arrested for possession of guns, to be used in terrorist attacks as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antonio Muñoz Molina‘s El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider]. When it was released in Spain in 1991, it garnered a lot of critical praise and sold well, despite its length and complexity. It tells the story of Manuel, a thirty-five year interpreter who has drifted round the world … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alexis Wright‘s Plains of Promise. It is about the (poor) treatment of aborigines, both now and in the 1950s. The first part is set in a mission in the north of the country, where the mother of seven year old Ivy Koopundi has just killed herself by dowsing … Read more
With Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries winning the ManBooker Prize, I must apologise to Jim Crace and Ruth Ozeki, as I predicted that Crace would win and Ozeki should win, a curse that doomed both of them. Nevertheless, congratulations to Eleanor Catton. Her novel is a very fine one and I am convinced that she will … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sadriddin Aini‘s Марги судхур (Death of a Money Lender), the first Tajik novel on my website. It is an amusing novel but with a certain seriousness, telling the story of Kori-Ichkamba, a large man, who spends his time cajoling, cheating and avoiding paying for anything at all. He … Read more
Now that the Nobel Prize – congratulations to Alice Munro but, as I almost never read short stories, I am afraid that I have not read her nor do I have plans to do so – and German Book Prize – congratulations to Terézia Mora, whom I hope to read soon – are out of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Colm Tóibín‘s The Testament of Mary. I have generally not enjoyed Tóibín’s work and this was no exception. Indeed, I only read it because it was on the Man Booker shortlist. It is the testament of the Virgin Mary, writing long after her son’s death, speaking not as … Read more