The latest addition to my website is Irène Némirovsky‘s David Golder (David Golder). It tells the story of a ruthless businessman in 1920s France, who specialises in oil. We see him outwitting, often by devious means, his competitors but also his colleagues. He has a large house in Biarritz, where his wife, Gloria, and daughter, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Carmen Amoraga‘s La vida era eso [Such Was Life]. This is another book in my reading of this year’s literary prize winners/shortlisted books. This book won Spain’s Nadal Prize. It tells the story of Giuliana di Benedetto, an Argentinian of Italian origin who lives in Spain. At the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lucia Etxebarría‘s Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes [Beatrice and the Heavenly Bodies]. This is the story of a young Spanish woman, Beatriz de la Haya, and her life at around the age of twenty. For a while she lives with Mónica, in the house of Mónica’s parents, who … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marilynne Robinson‘s Housekeeping. This is, of course, a book I should have read years ago but, with her new book just out, now was the time to do it. Apart from the fact, that this is one of the foremost US novels of the latter part of the … 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 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 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 Paula Gunn Allen‘s The Woman Who Owned The Shadows. Native American authors still get something of a short shrift in the US pantheon, which is a pity as there are some very fine Native American novels. This is one of them, telling the story of Ephanie Atencio, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kirsti Paltto‘s Guržo luottat, the first Sámi novel on my website, and, apparently, the first novel written by a Sámi woman. I have not put a title in English as the Sámi sources I have found do not given a translation for the title. The Finnish translation of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marina Warner‘s The Leto Bundle. This is a superb novel about identity, refugees, immigration, religion, the effect of war and political upheaval, particularly on women, as well, of course, as we would expect from Marina Warner, about myth and its role both in the past and for us … Read more