The latest addition to my website isChristos Chrissopoulos‘ Ο βομβιστης του Παρθενώνα ( The Parthenon Bomber). As the title tells us this is about a man who blows up the Parthenon. We follow various aspects of the story, starting with his account, though we are warned that there are vagarious alleged accounts and it is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paolo Giordano‘s Tasmania (Tasmania). Our narrator, called Paolo Giordano, is a science journalist. He is worried about private issues – particularly his marriage, not least because his wife cannot get pregnant but also worldwide issues, such as climate change and terrorism but others as well. He is unsure … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michel Houellebecq‘s Anéantir [Annihilate]. This is a fairly typical Houellebecq novel. It opens in late 2026. There are three main plot lines: a group of terrorists initially sends out some highly sophisticated CGI videos, using a technology not thought possible, and which appear initially on French government sites … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Uwe Tellkamp‘s Der Eisvogel [The Kingfisher]. Wiggo Ritter is a lost soul. His father is a ruthless banker and Wiggo hates everything he stands for. He studies philosophy, to his father’s disgust, but gets into a dispute with his professor and loses his job. He then meets Mauritz … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ramon Saizarbitoria‘s Martutene (Martutene). This is a mammoth (816 pages) Basque novel, that has claims to being the Great Basque Novel. Primarily, it tells the stories of two couples. One couple is Martin, a successful Basque short story writer who is trying to write his first novel, and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s A királyné nyaklánca (The Queen’s Necklace). According to Szerb’s introduction to the book, this is not a novel but then, in his posthumous papers, he claims that it might be sort of a novel. In my view it is perhaps what we might call a popular … Read more
The Syndicat de la librairie française (the French booksellers’ association) has put out a reading list of books to read following the terrorist atacks in Paris. The list is, of course, in French and nearly all the books are non-fiction, though there is one fiction work I have read: Mathias Enard‘s Boussole [Compass], not yet … Read more