The latest addition to my website isSamantha Harvey‘s Orbital. The novel is set entirely on the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth (sixteen times a day), with a multinational (US, UK Italy Japan, Russia) crew of six. But don’t let that put you off, as it won the 2024 Booker Prize and deservedly … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maylis de Kerangal‘s Corniche Kennedy [Kennedy Corniche]. The novel is set in Marseilles, primarily on a platform overlooking Keenedy Corniche and the sea. A group of teenagers go there to sunbathe and hang out but also to jump from various high ledges into the sea. They are joined … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ghazaleh Alizadeh‘s خانه ادریسیها (The House of The Edrisis (Volume 1). The novel is set in what we know as Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan, but it had been part of Persia and is now (1910s) part of Russia. The Edrisis are a decaying family living in a large … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Scholastique Mukasonga‘s Sister Deborah. The novel is set in Rwanda when it was a Belgian colony. A ,mission consisting of black Americans comes to a village in Rwanda, with Sister Deborah seemingly the leader. She seems to have the gift of healing and helps many, including Ikirezi, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website isOlga Tokarczuk‘s Empuzjon (Empusium). The novel is set in 1913 in a Magic Mountain-like tuberculosis sanatorium. Our hero is Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a young Polish student of hydroengineering from Lwow now Lviv. We mainly follow Wojnicz and the other denizens of the boarding house where he is staying. Strange things … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vigdis Hjörth‘s Om bare (If Only). Ida Heier is married with two children and a successful playwright. One day at a conference she meets Arnold Bush (short, balding). He is a professor of German. They end up in bed. The rest of the book describes her obsession with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Olena Stiazhkina‘s Смерть Лева Сесіла (Cecil the Lion Had to Die). In 1986 a group of Ukrainians of German origin in Donetsk decide to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ernst Thälmann by naming a new-born child after him. Two babies are selected, to be called … Read more
The latest addition to my website isAmélie Nothomb‘s L’impossible retour [The Impossible Return]. In this book, Amélie Nothomb returns to Japan, where she had lived earlier in her life, with a female photographer friend, who had won a photography competition with free travel for two as the prize. The friend, Pep, turns out to be … Read more
The latest addition to my website isLydie Salvayre‘s La Vie commune (Everyday Life). This novel tells the story of Suzanne Barette,a widow of thirty-two years who works as a secretary in the office of M. Meyer, a successful marketing manager. A new secretary has been appointed and Suzanne really does not like her – cheap … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Noémi Kiss-Deáki‘s Mary and the Rabbit Dream. Noémi Kiss-Deáki is Finnish but writes in English. This book is set in early eighteenth-century England. It tells the story of the historical Mary Toft. After her fourth miscarriage, while her cervix was still open, enabling rabbit parts to be inserted … Read more