Man Booker Prize shortlist

They have just announced the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize. They are: Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings Tom McCarthy: Satin Island Chigozie Obioma: The Fishermen Sunjeev Sahota: The Year of the Runaways Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread Hanya Yanagihara: A Little Life Two from the UK, two from … Read more

Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz: Farinet ou la fausse monnaie [Farinet or the Forged Money]

The latest addition to my website is Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz‘s Farinet ou la fausse monnaie [Farinet or the Forged Money]. Maurice Farinet, when young, befriended an old man, Sage, who had found a vein of gold in the mountains. When he died, it became Farinet’s. He uses the gold to make twenty franc coins. Given that … Read more

Mathias Enard: Boussole (Compass)

The latest addition to my website is Mathias Enard‘s Boussole (Compass). This is about one man, an Austrian musicologist called Franz Ritter, who is currently ill with an unspecified disease, who throws away the tablets his doctor gives him and lies awake at night, thinking about various things. These include his unrequited love for the … Read more

Amélie Nothomb: Le crime du comte Neville [The Crime of Count Neville]

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