The latest addition to my website is Jenny Erpenbeck‘s Gehen, ging, gegangen [Go, Went, Gone]. This is a very timely book, as it is about the refugee crisis and is, indeed, the second book about refugees I have read recently. The other one showed that Europe (or, at least, France) was more welcoming but then … Read more
The Saltire Society has announced its shortlist for its 2015 literary awards. While the fiction list has several of the usual suspects – Irvine Welsh, Kate Atkinson, the underrated Janice Galloway, whose novel The Trick is to Keep Breathing I read many years ago and plan to reread and review some day, Andrew O’Hagan amd … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Leila S Chudori‘s Pulang (Home). The novel tells the story of a group of Indonesians who are abroad in 1965, during the 1965 anti-communist coup and are unable to return and have to spend the rest of their lives abroad. The main character is Dimas Suryo, who is … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Alexandra Kleeman‘s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine. I was just yesterday reading a story about eating fads. While this novel is concerned with eating and eating habits, it only tangentially deals with eating disorders. What it is primarily about is how the media focuses on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Amélie Nothomb‘s Le crime du comte Neville [The Crime of Count Neville]. This is her twenty-fourth book in twenty-four years. She regularly produces a novel during the French rentrée and this one is this year’s offering. It will doubtlessly appear in English ere long. It is something of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Elena Ferrante‘s Storia del nuovo cognome (The Story of a New Name), the second in her L’amica geniale (My Brilliant Friend) series. This novel starts exactly where the last one ended, at the marriage between Stefano and Lila, with Lila incandescent with rage at seeing the shoes she … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Elena Ferrante‘s L’amica geniale (My Brilliant Friend). This novel has had considerable success, both in English and Italian and, with the fourth in the L’amica geniale (My Brilliant Friend) series) coming out in English next month, I felt that it was time I read it. The first reason … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Anna Smaill‘s The Chimes. I have been sitting on this for several months but am inspired to read it as it made The Man Booker longlist and, as I have only read two others on the list (both, interestingly enough, by women), I felt that I should get … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kathryn Davis‘ The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf. This is a first-class novel about the nature of art (in this case music) and how it intertwines with life. The story is told by Frances Thorn, a woman who, accordingly to her family, disgraced herself and is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi‘s Kintu. This is a superb book about modern Uganda, though the story starts in 1750. Kintu Kidda is the governor of a Ugandan province in 1750. He loves Nnakato and marries her but she cannot bear him children. As a result, he is persuaded to … Read more