Vladimir Lorchenkov: Все там будем (The Good Life Elsewhere)

The latest addition to my website is Vladimir Lorchenkov‘s Все там будем (The Good Life Elsewhere). This Moldovan novel is a wickedly funny satire on all things Moldovan. The basic plot concerns a small village of 523 people where all the inhabitants want to emigrate to Italy, as life in their village is very grim, … Read more

Eduard Vilde: Mäeküla piimamees (Milkman of the Manor)

The latest addition to my website is Eduard Vilde‘s Mäeküla piimamees (Milkman of the Manor). This novel, which has been called Estonia’s first psychological novel, tells the story of an estate owned by a German, Ulrich von Kremer, and one of his tenant farmers, Tōnu Prillup. Prillup’s wife, Leenu, has died, and he has almost … Read more

Jun’ichiro Tanizaki: 痴人の愛 (Naomi)

The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 痴人の愛 (Naomi). This was Tanizaki’s first full-length novel, written when he had moved away from Yokohama after the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. It tells the story of Joji Kawai, a serious young man with a good job in Tokyo who falls for a young woman … Read more

Joël Dicker: La Vérité sur l’affaire Harry Quebert (The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair)

The latest addition to my website is Joël Dicker‘s La Vérité sur l’affaire Harry Quebert (The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair). I hesitated about reading this novel as, though it got some good reviews and won the Goncourt Prix des lycéens, it also got some poor reviews. Some reviewers thought it brilliantly combined the … Read more

Stephen Schneck: The Nightclerk

The latest addition to my website is Stephen Schneck‘s The Nightclerk, a very funny and somewhat over the top cult novel, long since out of print, about a very fat man – he weighs at least 600 pounds – called J Spenser Blight who is the night clerk at the Travelers Hotel in San Francisco. … Read more

Hans Scherfig: Den forsvundne fuldmægtig (The Missing Bureaucrat)

The latest addition to my website is Hans Scherfig‘s Den forsvundne fuldmægtig (The Missing Bureaucrat). This novel takes the form of a detective story, when two men in Copenhagen are found missing within a short while of one another. The first is a respected civil servant, working in the War Department, Teodor Amsted, a man … Read more

Lawrence Durrell: Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness

The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness, the first in Durrell’s Avignon Quintet. It starts with the apparent suicide of Piers de Nogaret, descendant of Guillaume de Nogaret, the man who, in 1307, arrested many of the Templars. Piers’ friend and brother-in-law, Bruce Drexel, a doctor in … Read more