The latest addition to my website is Vladislav Otroshenko‘s Приложение к фотоальбому (Addendum to a Photo Album). This a hilarious and somewhat fanciful account of a Cossack family of thirteen brothers, the children of Annushka and (with one exception) Malakh. The one exception is the somewhat blustering Semion, the eleventh son, who is conceived and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vasily Golovanov‘s Остров или Оправдание бессмысленных путешествий [Island or A Justification for Meaningless Travel]. This is a wonderful non-fiction novel, in which the author describes his fascination with and his visits to Kolguyev Island, a remote island off the coast of Northern Russia. Professionally he has worked as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mikhail Shishkin‘s Взятие Измаила [The Taking of Izmail]. This is one of his earlier novels, not (yet?) translated into English but, in my view more enjoyable than his two novels that have been translated into English. The blurb on the back of the French edition (which I read) … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mikhail Shishkin‘s Письмовник (The Light and the Dark). It tells the story of two lovers, Volodya and Sasha, apparently writing letters to one another though, as we eventually learn, they appear to be living a hundred years apart. He is a soldier, appointed to be staff clerk, in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mikhail Shishkin‘s Венерин Волос (Maidenhair). This is a very complex novel that romps through Russian history, primarily of the past hundred years but also dips into earlier history, including Xenophon. An unnamed Russian-German interpreter is the link between the various stories. He works for the Swiss authority dealing … Read more
Last year, starting in March, I read nothing but Icelandic novels for a month or so. I found the experience very interesting, getting different perspectives of the same country in a short space of time, so I decided to repeat the exercise with another country. I did think about New Zealand, as I have recently … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nuruddin Farah‘s Crossbones, the third book in his trilogy about Somalia at the beginning of this century and the the efforts of expatriate Somalis visiting the country to improve things. This one sees three visitors – Jeebleh, who visited ten years previously in the first novel in the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ París no se acaba nunca (Never Any End to Paris). This is a fun post-modern novel, nominally about the two years the unnamed author, but clearly Vila-Matas himself, spent in Paris writing his first novel. It is told in the form of a three day lecture … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nuruddin Farah‘s Knots, the second in a trilogy of novels about expatriate Somalis visiting Somalia during the early part of this century, when the situation was really grim. This one follows Cambara, a Somali woman who is living in Canada. She married an expatriate Somali, Wardi, who married … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Junot Díaz‘s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. As this was voted best novel of the century (so far), I really had to read it to see if it was the best. It is not the best novel of the century so far but it is still … Read more