As the world seems to get worse and worse, reading books seems increasingly to be the best escape. It has been helped (for me) this year by the fact that I have read more longer, often very long books. I do enjoy a really long, good book not least because you can really get immersed … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mircea Cărtărescu‘s Travesti [Travesty]. The novel is narrated by the thirty-four year old Victor, a successful writer but with a troubled mind, clearly traumatised by an event that happened when he was seventeen. He is now writing the book about the event which took place on a school … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Magda Szabó‘s Abigél (Abigail). This first appeared in Hungary fifty years ago where it has been Szabó’s most popular novel. It is set in 1943-44 and tells the story of the fourteen-fifteen year old Georgina (Gina) Vitay. Her mother died when she was two and she has been … Read more
Latest on my website: Amélie Nothomb‘s Les prénoms épicènes [The Epicene First Names]. This is a Nothomb parable, telling the tale of a couple with epicene first names, (names which can be used for either sex) and their daughter called Epicène. He (Claude) had seduced her (Dominique) and persuaded her to marry him and move … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sara Lidman‘s Tjärdalen [The Tar Still]. This is Lidman’s first novel, telling the story of a remote Swedish village. Nils has spent a long time building a tar still, from which he hopes to make some money. However, just before he is to light it, he finds it … Read more
The latest addition to my website is A. G. Porta‘s Me llamo Vila-Matas, como todo el mundo [My Name is Vila-Matas, Like Everyone. This is a short absurdist book, consisting of a dialogue between two unnamed people, who are called Vila-Matas, like everyone. The basic premise is that the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas has come … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Esta bruma insensata [That Mindless Mist]. This is Vila-Matas on form with his intellectual, literary, post-modern games. We follow the story of Simon Schneider, a man from Barcelona, who makes his living providing quotations to a successful US-based author, who turns out to be his younger … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Eduardo Mendoza‘s Una comedia ligera (A Light Comedy) . It set in the late 1940s, in and around Barcelona, as with most of Mendoza’s work. Our hero is Carlos Prullàs, a popular and successful playwright, who writes light comedies. We follow him around for a long while – … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ibtisam Azem‘s وسفر الاختفاء (The Book of Disappearance). The book is set primarily in Jaffa. Alaa is a Palestinian who works as a cameraman. At the beginning of the book his beloved grandmother dies and much of the book is tribute to her and the sufferings she and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Patrick Modiano‘s Quartier perdu (A Trace of Malice). This has several of Modiano’s favourite themes – looking for the past, finding Paris has changed a lot, a hero who has two personalities – his present and his past one and some murky secret which will gradually come out. … Read more