The latest addition to my website is Hans Henny Jahnn‘s Epilog [Epilogue], the final part of his monumental and unfinished trilogy. This novel carries on from somewhat before the ending of the previous book. We see that Gemma is happily married to Egil Bohn, the horse dealer and they have four sons. The oldest, Nikolaj, … Read more
I have just uploaded the latest statisticsfor my website. I am not sure of the significance of any of it. Spain has overtaken Ireland into sixth place, as it should. There are also a few new entries. I really have nothing much else to say about them, except, of course, that I have read too … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Livia or Buried Alive. This is the second book in Durrell’s Avignon Quintet but not, in my view, as good as the previous one. We learned, at the end of Monsieur, that the whole story had been invented by the writer Blanford and, in this one, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is César Aira‘s El congreso de literatura (The Literary Conference). This is another totally original story from Aira, using Hollywood B movie tropes (mad scientist, unworldly creatures, advanced technology). The hero/narrator César, a literary translator who has not had much work recently because of the financial crisis, manages to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jean-Luc Seigle‘s En vieillissant les hommes pleurent [Men Cry As They Get Older]. It is set primarily in July 1961 and concerns the Chassaing family – Albert, a working class man who works for Michelin but who still feels the shame of the surrender of the French army … Read more
John Dugdale, in the Guardian, has produced an interesting list of writers born in Ukraine but not usually associated with that country . It includes the likes of Gogol, Conrad, Lem, Lispector, Bulgakov and Isaac Babel, who is not on my site as he did not write any novels but who was a brilliant writer. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vladimir Lorchenkov‘s Все там будем (The Good Life Elsewhere). This Moldovan novel is a wickedly funny satire on all things Moldovan. The basic plot concerns a small village of 523 people where all the inhabitants want to emigrate to Italy, as life in their village is very grim, … Read more
We have just returned from a long weekend in Iceland, where we went to see the Northern Lights (yes, we did – twice). It was perfect timing, as the snow was still around enough to make the scenery bleak but beautiful and not too much to prevent us from driving, though it snowed heavily the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Rafael Chirbes‘ En la orilla [On the Shore]. This book was generally agreed by Spanish critics to be the best Spanish novel of 2013 and also the best novel on the Spanish economic crisis. As is usual with Chirbes, plot is not key to this book; indeed, there … Read more