The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s An Item from the Late News. This is another first-class novel from Astley on the theme of the different outsider arriving in a closed, small community and not fitting in. The outsider is known only as Wafer (we learn that his real name is Lionel). He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Azza Filali‘s Les intranquilles [Uncertain Times]. While not a great novel by any means, it is certainly a fascinating portrait of Tunisia after the Revolution, showing that the revolution has essentially failed and replaced one lot of crooks/oppressors by another lot. We follow a small number of Tunisians … Read more
What is the best-selling novel of all time? According to this article in the TLS, till recently, Wikipedia said it was A Tale of Two Cities. As the article states, this was added to Wikipedia, removed, add, removed… It now seems to have been removed and Wikipedia offers us Lord of the Rings, with the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Azza Filali‘s Outann [Outann]. This is a Tunisian novel set shortly before the Tunisian Revolution and showing a country ripe for change. Virtually all the characters in the book are miserable. Many of them are engaged in dubious, usually criminal activities. Many of them are divorced or heading … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Espido Freire‘s Melocotones helados [Frozen Peaches]. This is a complex multi-generational novel which won the Premio Planeta in 1999. The first generation focuses on Esteban, who fought on the Franco side in the Spanish Civil War. At the end of the war, he goes to Desrein (all town … Read more
The latest addition to my website is C E Morgan‘s The Sport of Kings. This novel has already received lots of rave reviews, generally deservedly so. It is a first-class novel about sex, racial politics, horse racing, incest, South vs North (in the USA), families, the failure of the American Dream and the striving to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is James Salter‘s All That Is. This novel was published shortly before his death but thirty-four years after his last novel. The main character is Philip Bowman, born, like Salter, in 1925. Like virtually all the characters in the book – and there are a lot – he is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Antal Szerb‘s Utas és holdvilág (Journey by Moonlight). This is a wonderfully written book about a man, Mihály, who struggles to cope with life and is obsessed with death. As a child, he had been part of a small group – a brother and sister, Éva and Tamás, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Han Kang‘s 채식주의자 (The Vegetarian). This book won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. It is a disturbing but superbly written novel. Yeong-hye, a Korean woman, married to Mr. Cheong, is seemingly a good and conventional wife. Suddenly, as the result of an unpleasant dream (she will have … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paola Capriolo‘s Il doppio regno (The Dual Realm). This is another strange novel from Capriolo. It is a diary written by an Italian woman aged around thirty who does not remember her name and has something of a hazy recollection of the events that led to this situation. … Read more