tmn For the past two years, at around this time of year, I have focussed on reading books from only one country. Two years ago, it was Iceland. Last year it was Russia. I could easily have done Russia again but, as the title says, I will be focussing on Japan for the next few weeks. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thomas Rosenboom‘s Publieke werken [Public Works]. Thomas Rosenboom won the prestigious Dutch Libris Prize for this work but, sadly, it has yet to be translated into English. It is a historical novel set in late nineteenth century Netherlands and involves some poor Jewish peat diggers, a rural pharmacist … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Oleg Kashin‘s Роисся вперде (Fardwor Russia!). Kashin is a Russian journalist who has been very critical of the Russian government and has been beaten up more than once for his pains. This book is a satire, but not too vicious, on the Russian system, with corruption and violence … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Victor Pelevin‘s Поколение «П» (UK: Babylon; US: Homo zapiens), another gloriously funny and wicked satire from Pelevin. This one is nominally about the advertising industry but goes well beyond that. Our hero is Babylen Tatarsky (his first name comes from a combination of Baby Yar and Lenin and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marlen Haushofer‘s Die Wand (The Wall). The story tells of an unnamed woman who is to stay with friends in a hunting lodge at the edge of the Austrian Alps. The plan is that she will arrive early and they will join her in the evening. They do … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Victor Pelevin‘s Чапаев и Пустота (UK: The Clay Machine-Gun; US: Buddha’s Little Finger). This is another wonderful, witty, post-modernist novel from Pelevin. Pyotr Voyd, the narrator, is not sure when he lives. He is a commissar in 1919 to Vasily Chapayev, Soviet hero and subject of the book … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kate Atkinson‘s A God in Ruins. This is a follow-up to her quirky Life After Life. That book featured Ursula Todd. This book, which also features Ursula Todd to some degree, is primarily about her younger brother, Ted, and his daughter Viola. Apart from a little bit at … Read more
The latest addition to my website is James Salter‘s A Sport and a Pastime. The novel is set in France, specifically Paris and Autun, and is narrated by a self-confessed unreliable narrator. He has borrowed the house of Parisian friends in Autun, where he is staying on his own, lusting unsuccessfully after the divorcee Mme … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jowhor Ile‘s And After Many Days. This is Ile’s first novel and very well written for a first novel. The story involves the Utu family, who live in Port Harcourt, and consists of Benedict (Bendic), a lawyer, his wife, Ma, a teacher and their two sons, Paul and … Read more
I have just returned from a distinctly unliterary holiday in South Africa and Zimbabwe, with little literary to report. The South Africans I talked to were fairly ignorant of their own literature and professed to being far more interested in the great outdoors or cricket than in books. (For those more concerned with the Panthers … Read more