- The Atom Station by Halldor Laxness
- While we were dreaming by Clemens Meyer
- In the Belly of the Queen by Karosh Taha
- Brendals Fantasy by Gunther Freitag
- The Widow Couderc by Georges Simenon
- The Boarding House by Piotr Paziniski
- Nightwalking BY John Lewis stempel
- Azúcar by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
- The Strangers by Jon Bilbao
I felt I was back on track blogging, is I had managed 9 reviews in the last month. I started in Iceland and a political satire told by a made in the minister’s house. Then we have a group of lads growing up in post-unification Germany a thinly veiled piece of Autofiction of the writer’s years growing up. Then we have a pair of stories telling the outcome of a group of Kurdish refugees when one hits another, causing waves we have two narratives from this event. Then a dying man went to Northern Italy to stage a show. A widow lets a man into her house. What will happen when he meets her kids !! Then a man travels to visit the boarding house his grandmother lived in with fellow holocaust survivors. The ghost of the memories lingers in the air. Then four seasons of walking through the night and what you see. Then an imagined Caribbean country has issues when its sweetened rice crop begins to fail, and a couple that met years ago reconnect. When a couple wintering at the coast as UFO appears an unknown family? We went through 8 countries, a number of genres and one new publisher.
Book of the month
I had some great reads this month, but this grabbed me and was the one I had hoped would win the Booker International. It is a great coming of age for a group of hard living working class lads.
The halfway mark
A lot of you tubers have a half check-in. Well, here is mine. I have reviewed 43 books on the blog. I have read 58 books this year, Goodreads tells me. I had set 125 for the year and think I will hit that in my head. I want to review 100 books here if not a few more. I had added up and the country counts for the blog is at 116. Another plan is to get to 120 by the end of the year.
The book so far – while we were dreaming by Clemens Meyer
Discovery of the Year – all the devils are here by David Seabrook; a repeat of backlisted put me on to this gem.
A new writer to me – well not a new writer but I have read one and am finishing another by Javier Marias. I had read him before, but this year I finally got him as a writer which is great. I have a lot by him to read.
looking forward to The new Mathias Enard sound simply mad, then I have ordered the second book by Olga Ravn, and there is the two Peter Nadas books coming out.
Non-book events last month-
We finished a small light, and then we started to watch Archive 81, a horror series on Netflix from a podcast about a woman and a strange building in New York. I’ve been watching the two Denise Mina adaptions that BBC brought it a few years ago.
The month ahead
I am in Scotland for a family funeral the first week in July so I may not get to blog much that week, but I will try. I have a number of books on the go at the moment A long Hebrew classic I am midway through, a short German Satire and then Berta Isla. I have after this a plan to read a Nyrb classic and an Archipelago book not sure which I do yet I have so many on my shelves, and I plan to read one a month for the rest of the year. I am always inspired by the like of `Trevor at Mookse and the guys behind the unburied books podcast to read some more from these publishers but as ever I am a reader in the wind so plans can change just like the wind!
What has your month been like?
Not as much as you, Stu, but I’ve had some false starts… books I heard about and borrowed from the library but they turned out to be a bit ordinary.
I don’t listen to podcasts much, only if I’m doing some housekeeping on the blog which doesn’t demand much concentration. And what I’ve found is that some of the bookish podcasts which are monetised, promote books that they’re being paid to talk about. So they’re not necessarily books that they’ve even read! I mean, I can tell from the obvious flaws in the book that they would have to discuss if they’d actually read the book.
Podcasts are like blogs, some are much better than others.
Looks like an excellent month Stu – a great range of books!
Isn’t Javier Marías wonderful? He’s an author I’m seriously tempted to set a reading project for myself of reading all his books in order.