The latest addition to my website is Lars Mytting‘s Svøm med dem som drukner (The Sixteen Trees of the Somme). This is a very well-told tale by the author of the definitive guide to wood-chopping, Norwegian Wood. Edvard Hirifjell lives with his grandfather on a remote farm in Norway. His parents died when he was … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nicole Krauss‘ Forest Dark. This is another superb novel from Krauss, telling two parallel stories. One is about Jules Epstein, a sixty-eight year old, divorced Jewish-American man who has made a lot of money but now feels disconnected from his present and finds the need to reconnect with … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Robert Walser‘s Der Gehülfe (The Assistant). This is the second book published by Walser (the third he wrote) and is based on his own experiences. The story involves Joseph Marti, a self-critical, somewhat absent-minded young man, who goes to work for Carl Tobler, an inventor. He lives in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fiona Mozley‘s Elmet. There have been a lot of interesting novels coming out recently from young British women. I recently read Adelle Stripe‘s excellent Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, and here is another first-class novel set in Yorkshire. This novel surprised everybody by being nominated for the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nicole Krauss‘ The History of Love. This is an excellent book about creativity and authorship, about the Holocaust and about who we are. Leo Gursky was in love with Alma back in Slonim (variously in Poland and Russia). Her father paid for her to go to the USA … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean Giono‘s Que ma joie demeure (Joy of Man’s Desiring). This is an unusual book for Giono, as it flirts with fantasy. It is set, as usual, in a farming community in an unnamed region of central France. The region has been affected by a general malaise, making … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Igor Eliseev‘s One-Two. This novel tells the story of two conjoined girls and their life as children in a brutal Soviet institution and then their life in post-Soviet Russia where the capitalist system turns out to be just as cruel as the Soviet system, as they are hired … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claudio Magris‘ Un altro mare (A Different Sea). This novel tells the story of the very real Enrico Mreule. He is friends with two other young men, including the philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter, in Gorizia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three friends spend their time discussing philosophy … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dumitru Tsepeneag‘s Hotel Europa (Hotel Europa). This is a hilarious, anarchic novel about an unnamed Romanian narrator (clearly based on Tsepeneag himself) who is living in France, married to a French woman, and who is trying to write a novel but is not sure what he wants the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Minae Mizumura‘s 母の遺産 (Inheritance of Mother). This is a feminist novel, about the changing role of women in Japan. We follow three generations of Japanese women, who all have their own problems, caused or exacerbated by their sex. We mainly follow Mitsuki and her older sister Natsuki who … Read more