The latest addition to my website is Javier Marías‘ Así empieza lo malo [Thus Bad Begins]. This is another excellent novel from Marías about marital relations, the enduring effect of the Civil War and the Franco era on contemporary Spain and betrayal and deceit. Juan de Vere is now around fifty but tells of events … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kirsti Paltto‘s Guržo luottat, the first Sámi novel on my website, and, apparently, the first novel written by a Sámi woman. I have not put a title in English as the Sámi sources I have found do not given a translation for the title. The Finnish translation of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Réda Dalil‘s Le Job [The Job]. Having decided, unlike the past two years, not to read all the Man Booker shortlist entries, as I frankly was not very inspired by them, I decided to have a look at some other prize lists. This novel won the Moroccan Mamounia … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Wilson Harris‘ The Eye of the Scarecrow. This is another strange novel from Harris, about a trip into the Guyanese jungle to find a lost city. As with his other works, plot very much takes second place to imagery and we get, once again, some wonderful images, including … Read more
The most recent addition to my website is Pierre Mertens‘ Les éblouissements (Shadowlight), Mertens’ best-known novel. It tells the story of German poet Gottfried Benn, starting with a section on his participation in a Belgian literary festival in Knokke in 1952 but then with each subsequent chapter taking place ten years after the preceding one, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ian McEwan‘s The Children Act. This novel did not make the Man Booker 20124 longlist and, while it certainly is not a bad book, it is not McEwan back to his old form. It tells the story of Fiona Maye, a High Court judge in the Family Division, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is David Mitchell‘s The Bone Clocks. While this did make the Man Booker 2014 longlist, it surprisingly did not make the shortlist. I suspect that the fantasy elements in the book, which at times come close to being Dan Brown-ish, may have put off some of the judges, as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Orhan Pamuk‘s Cevdet Bey ve Oğullari [Cevdet Bey and His Sons]. This is his first book, which has yet to be translated into English, though is available in several other languages. It is not like his later books, in that it is a realist family saga, set over … Read more
I have just returned from a trip to Sweden and Lithuania. In Sweden, I stayed in the small town of Växjö (small but with a large university in its outskirts). Despite its size, it is the birthplace of several writers, including Jonas Jonasson, author of Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann (The Hundred-Year-Old … Read more
I am not terribly impressed with this year’s shortlist: Joshua Ferris: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour Richard Flanagan: The Narrow Road to the Deep North Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Howard Jacobson: J Neel Mukherjee: The Lives of Others Ali Smith: How to be Both One Englishman, a Scot, … Read more