The latest addition to my website is Geoff Nicholson‘s The City Under the Skin. I notice that this is the sixteenth novel by Nicholson I have read and I can safely say that I have enjoyed them all. This follows the usual Nicholson pattern – a mysterious plot with twists and twists within twists, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Idris Ali‘s دنقلة : رواية نوبية (Dongola). This a novel by a Nubian. Nubia was a separate kingdom, in the south of Egypt, and north of Sudan. Indeed, as the book tells us, it was a Christian kingdom, till conquered by Egypt in the late Middle Ages. For … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Heather O’Neill‘s The Girl Who Was Saturday Night. This is another book in my reading of literary prize shortlist books that aren’t the Man Booker, this book being on the Giller Prize shortlist , with the winner to be announced 10 November. This novel tells the colourful story … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Wilson Harris‘ Black Marsden. This is another enigmatic novel from Harris which I cannot claim to have fully understood or to have enjoyed. It concerns a man called Clive Goodrich, who is rich, having won the football pools, and who has bought a house in Edinburgh with the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Clara Dupont-Monod‘s Le roi disait que j’étais diable [The King Said I Was a Devil]. This novel is on the shortlist for this year’s Goncourt Prize (link in French), with the winner to be announced 5 November. This is a first person account by Eleanor of Aquitaine, the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 瘋癲老人日記 (Diary of a Mad Old Man). This is, in fact, the diary of seventy-seven year old man who, while he might have one or two mental issues, is more of a dirty old man than a mad old man. The narrator is suffering from ill … Read more
After a longer wait than usual, they have announced the shortlist for the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. The fiction shortlist is: A World of Other People, Steven Carroll (HarperCollins) The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (Vintage Australia) The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane (Penguin: Hamish Hamilton) Coal Creek, Alex Miller (Allen & … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gertrud Leutenegger‘s Panischer Frühling [Panic Spring]. This book was nominated for both the Swiss Book Prize (link in German) (winner announced 9 November) and the German Book Prize for which the winner has already been announced – Lutz Seiler’s Kruso, which I reviewed last week. It is something … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Pierre Mertens‘ Une paix royale [A Royal Peace]. This is a superb book about a Belgian called Pierre Raymond who is now a fairly reluctant travel guide, though this is something he has done for most of his life. However, he now needs a new focus and that … Read more
They have announced that Richard Flanagan‘s The Narrow Road to the Deep North has won this year’s Man Booker Prize. To my surprise, I have read the winner. It certainly was not a bad novel and well told and clearly helped exorcise both Flanagan’s demons and those of his father. However, I do not think … Read more