The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Tom est mort (Tom is Dead). This is (fictitious) tale of a woman whose four-and-a-half year old son dies in an accident – we are not given the details till the end of the book – and what happens to her afterwards. She is writing ten … Read more
The Amazon editors have produced a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, with an associated Goodreads’ 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime: Readers’ Picks (Amazon, of course, own Goodreads). (Note that this list is on US Amazon; it does not appear to be on the other Amazons.) I enjoy a good … Read more
The Guardian had an article about the most significant historical/literary figures of all time. To do this, they claim to use a principled assessment of a person’s achievements, whatever that may mean. They examine various sources but their primary source is Wikipedia where they look for length of article, Google Page rank and number of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antonio Muñoz Molina‘s La noche de los tiempos (UK: The Depths of Time; US: In the Night of Time), a very long book telling the story of a successful architect from a relatively poor background during the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War and the period … Read more
Amazon has had some expensive ebooks for sale, such as this one, which was, apparently, over $6000 but is no longer available in ebook form, though the print copy is available for a mere $7400.50 though, if you are feeling flush, you can get the entire Landolt-Börnstein set for a price-busting $53,873.55, a saving of … Read more
I have been following with some interest the #readwomen2014 proposal made by writer/illustrator/blogger Joanna Walsh. (She also wrote an article in The Guardian). It has attracted a lot of interest around the world. It started with cartes de voeux bookmarks and has since blossomed into a huge Internet meme. Flavorwire has produced a 50 books … Read more
The latest addition to my website is valter hugo mãe‘s o apocalipse dos trabalhadores [The Apocalypse of the Workers]. mãe spells his name and writes all of his books in lower case, an annoying quirk. This novel tells the story of Maria da Graça, a cleaning lady for a rich man, Mr. Ferreira, who dreams … Read more
The latest addition to my website is valter hugo mãe‘s a máquina de fazer espanhóis [The Machine for Making Spaniards]. Note that he spells his name and writes his books entirely in lowercase. Apart from that annoying quirk, this really is an excellent novel. It tells the story of Antonio Silva, an eighty-four year old … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Upamanyu Chatterjee‘s The Mammaries of the Welfare State. This is a follow-up to Chatterjee’s English, August and continues the story of Agastya Sen, an Indian civil servant. I say that it continues his story, which it does, but the book is essentially a long, vicious, occasionally witty satire … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Josef Škvorecký‘s Nevysvetlitelný príbeh aneb Vyprávení Questa Firma Sicula (An Inexplicable Story or the Narrative of Questus Firmus Siculus). This is a tongue-in-cheek Ovid novel, purporting to be a 1st century Roman manuscript, written by a man whose mother may have been Ovid’s lover. The manuscript is inexplicably … Read more