The latest addition to my website is Pierre Lemaitre‘s Au revoir là-haut (The Great Swindle), the winner of the 2013 Goncourt Prize. The story starts in the last week of World War I, when all parties are awaiting the armistice. However, Lieutenant d’Aulnay-Pradelle wants his last chance at glory and promotion. He sends two men … Read more
Pierre Lemaitre has won this year’s Goncourt Prize for his Au revoir là-haut [Goodbye Up There]. Only one of his books has been translated into English – Alex, a thriller about a kidnapping. The winning novel is about two French men returning from World War I, ignored, neglected and broke. They decide to do something … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Terézia Mora‘s Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent [The Only Man on the Continent]. The novel, told in a mixture of the first and third person tells the story of Darius Kopp, a forty-something, overweight, asthmatic man, from the former East Germany, who is the sole representative on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s The Dark Labyrinth, originally published as Cefalù. It tells the story of a group of English people on a cruise in the Mediterranean and, in particular, their visit to a (fictional) labyrinth at (the fictitious) Cefalù. We start with one of their number – a poet … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Adam Foulds‘ The Quickening Maze. This a story about the poet John Clare and, to a much lesser degree, the poet Alfred Tennyson. Clare spent much of his adult life in asylums. This one tells of his time in an asylum in Essex, managed by Matthew Allen. Also … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Arnon Grunberg‘s Fantoompijn (Phantom Pain). This is a very funny book about a writer, Robert G Mehlman, who is arrogant, irresponsible, unfaithful to his wife, dishonest, lazy, greedy and utterly self-centred but a moderately successful writer. We follow both his past life as well as getting some detailed … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Donna Tartt‘s The Goldfinch, her third novel in twenty-one years. This one is another large novel – 800 pages – with undertones of violence and a fantastic read. It has been criticised by some for being a Harry Potter for adults but that is, in my view, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hubert Aquin‘s Prochain épisode (Next Episode), Aquin’s first novel and the only one of his works to be translated into English. Aquin wrote this novel when he was detained in a mental institution after having being arrested for possession of guns, to be used in terrorist attacks as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antonio Muñoz Molina‘s El jinete polaco [The Polish Rider]. When it was released in Spain in 1991, it garnered a lot of critical praise and sold well, despite its length and complexity. It tells the story of Manuel, a thirty-five year interpreter who has drifted round the world … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alexis Wright‘s Plains of Promise. It is about the (poor) treatment of aborigines, both now and in the 1950s. The first part is set in a mission in the north of the country, where the mother of seven year old Ivy Koopundi has just killed herself by dowsing … Read more