The latest addition to my website is Chadraabalyn Lodoidamba‘s Тунгалаг Тамир [The Clear Tamir]. This is the first Mongolian novel on my site. It tells the story of Mongolia from early in the twentieth century to the unsuccessful 1932 Lama Uprising. The story is told through the eyes of two brothers – Erdene and Tömör … Read more
The latest addition to my website is J M Coetzee‘s The Childhood of Jesus. This book is not about the childhood of Jesus, except, perhaps, very tangentially. What it is about is the arrival of the five-year old David and the forty-five year old Simón in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country, where new arrivals seem to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is François Mauriac‘s Le noeud de vipères (Vipers’ Tangle; later: The Knot of Vipers). It is considered one of Mauriac’s best novel, a judgement with which I wholeheartedly concur. It tells the story of a very successful lawyer, who hates his family (wife, children, their spouses and children) with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sarah A. Al Shafei‘s Yummah, the first Bahraini novel on the site. It is more of a memoir, a tribute to her grandmother who had nine children, a husband who deserted her when she was pregnant with the ninth and various other tragedies in her life, yet managed … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rupert Thomson‘s latest novel Secrecy. Unusually for Thomson, it is set in the past – seventeenth century Florence – and involves several real people, including the main character Gaetano Zummo, who made sculptures out of wax, particularly ones showing decomposing bodies. Zummo comes to work for Grand Duke … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Chinghiz Gusseinov‘s Магомед, Мамед, Мамиш (Mahomet, Mahmed, Mamish), an Azerbaijani novel, the first one from that country on my website. While certainly not a great novel, it is is certainly very enjoyable, telling the story of a rumbunctious family in Baku who both stick closely together while not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Emyr Humphreys‘ Outside the House of Baal. This is what Humphreys calls a long novel,not only in number of words but also because it covers a long(-ish) time span, namely from the early twentieth century to the 1960s. It tells the story of two families who see many … Read more
The latest addition to my website is François Mauriac‘s Thérèse Desqueyroux (Therese; later: Therese Desqueyroux). This is unusual for Mauriac, in that the heroine has committed a criminal act – she has tried to poison her husband. The books starts with her leaving the court, with her father and lawyer, as her husband has perjured … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kate Atkinson‘s Life After Life. This is a wonderful novel, a sort of cross between Ken Grimwood’s Replay and the film Groundhog Day. Ursula Todd is still-born, the umbilical cord strangling her. She is immediately born again and this time the umbilical cord does not strangle her. She … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Esther Tusquets‘ Para no volver (Never to Return). This is a first-class novel by one of the leading Spanish women novelists, who sadly died last year. She seems to be relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, despite the fact that several of her books, including this one, have … Read more