The latest addition to my website is Gerard Reve‘s De avonden [The Evenings]. This book was voted top in a poll by De Amsterdamse Leesgroep (The Amsterdam Reading Group) of the best Dutch literature of the 20th century. It was written while Reve was in prison for having helped a prisoner escape, while he was … Read more
The Daily Telegraph has published what it laughingly calls the 20 best British and Irish novels of all time. Three are ludicrous choices – Jilly Cooper, The Sea, The Sea and The Sea. One is a US writer. Henry James took British citizenship just a few months before he died, well after he had written … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Constance or Solitary Practices, the third book in Durrell’s Quincunx series. This one is set during World War II, with the various characters we have met in Avignon, scattering before the advancing Germans. Aubrey Blanford, the writer, goes off to Egypt as secretary to Prince Hassan, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jun’ichiro Tanizaki‘s 卍 (Quicksand). This a very erotic novel, even by Tanizaki’s standard. Sonoko Kakiuchi is a widow, telling her story to the author. She had been married to a lawyer and had accompanied him into town to go to art school. There she had met Mitsuko, a … Read more
I have now read twenty Icelandic novels in a row, which may seem and, indeed, probably is mildly obsessive. However, I shall now be calling a break and returning to to other nationalities. I still have quite a few unread Icelandic novels in my collection so if ever I feel the urge to read another … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ólafur Jóhann Sigurðsson‘s Bréf séra Böðvars (Pastor Bodvar’s Letter). This is a short tale about a retired pastor, Bodvar V Gunnlaugsson, living with his wife, Gudrid, in Reykjavik. It recounts the fairly mundane events of one day. The book starts and ends with his trying to write a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (Olaf Olafsson)‘s Höll minninganna (Walking into the Night). The main interest in this novel is that much of it is set in San Simeon, aka Hearst Castle. Christian Benediktsson, as he is known, though he has anglicised his first name Kristjan, is newspaper magnate William … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kristín Ómarsdóttir‘s Hér (Children in Reindeer Woods). (The Icelandic title means simply Here.) It is set in an unnamed country which appears to have been invaded by foreigners. Most of the action takes place in a temporary children’s home called Children in Reindeer Woods, located in a remote … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (Olaf Olafsson)‘s Slóð Fiðrildanna (The Journey Home). This is a fairly gentle tale of Disa, an Icelandic woman, who has settled in Somerset, in England and runs a hotel with her gay companion. She is the cook as well as the organiser. At the beginning … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sjón‘s Argóarflísin (The Whispering Muse). This is another first-class novel by Sjón. It tells the story of a man called Valdimar Haraldsson, a racist, who has made his name by producing a journal devoted to proving the superiority of the Nordic people because of their consumption of fish … Read more