The latest addition to my website is Pierre Mertens‘ Une paix royale [A Royal Peace]. This is a superb book about a Belgian called Pierre Raymond who is now a fairly reluctant travel guide, though this is something he has done for most of his life. However, he now needs a new focus and that … Read more
They have announced that Richard Flanagan‘s The Narrow Road to the Deep North has won this year’s Man Booker Prize. To my surprise, I have read the winner. It certainly was not a bad novel and well told and clearly helped exorcise both Flanagan’s demons and those of his father. However, I do not think … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lutz Seiler‘s Kruso, part of my feeble effort to read shortlisted books for this year’s book prizes, other than the Man Booker. This book was not only shortlisted for the German Book Prize (Deutscher Buchpreis) but won it. I had anticipated that it would win so had already … Read more
German author Siegfried Lenz has died. While not particularly well known in the English-speaking world, several of his works were translated into English, particularly Deutschstunde (The German Lesson), a superb novel about duty and art and the conflict between the two. It has been translated into English and is still readily available.
Lutz Seiler has won this year’s German Book Prize. He is known as a poet and this is his first novel, a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. I hope to have a review of it up later this week, though, of course, it has not been translated into English. I read last year’s winner and that has … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Oskar Maria Graf‘s Anton Sittinger [Anton Sittinger]. This book, first published in 1937 (in London) tells the story of the rise to power of the Nazis, as seen through the eyes of Anton Sittinger, a postal inspector in Munich, who retires to the country in 1929. He is … Read more
I have just updated the statistics for my website. England sadly remains top in terms of number of books, and the USA in terms of number of authors. I say sadly, because there is no doubt that England is far from the most important producer of quality novels over the last 120 years. During the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dannie Abse‘s Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve. Dannie Abse died last week, aged ninety-one. He was best-known as a poet but he also produced some prose works, including a few novels, of which this, very much an autobiographical novel, is the first. It tells of his life … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paula Gunn Allen‘s The Woman Who Owned The Shadows. Native American authors still get something of a short shrift in the US pantheon, which is a pity as there are some very fine Native American novels. This is one of them, telling the story of Ephanie Atencio, a … Read more