Ten for ten years of the club years

I had wanted to post this yesterday, but last week was the tenth year of Karen’s and Simon’s club year. Last week, they picked their ten favourite reads over the last decade of club reads. Well, I am throwing my hat into the ring. As you may know, I pick books by the year of their publication in their original language, not the year of translation.I have picked ten book in no order here we go

The Rebels by Sándor Márai

Four youths in a small village at the end of the second world war have a world free of male influences a lesser known book from this writer.a pick for 1930

Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte

I then move to 1944, and this Italian novel of an Italian writer sent to the eastern front in the dying embers of World War II. Autofiction from a writer with a questionable past but a fascinating slice of the start of the Nazis falling apart in the war.

Palm wine Drunkard by Amos Tutuola

A classic of African fiction, next he mixed  his native Yoruba folklore with a man on a journey to find a new person to make his palm wine . This is a perfect example of what I love about the club years this had been on my list of books to read and I just needed the nudge to get to it this was for 1952.

Wayward Hero by Haildór Laxness

Still, in 1952 another example of what I love is books like this we all know Laxness’ better-known books, but in recent years, we have been getting some of the gaps in his back catalogue filled in, like this book which saw his modern take on Icelandic Sagas.

Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

I love Steinbeck; he is one of America’s, if not the world’s, greatest writers. I said in this post that I raced through many of his books in my twenties, then slowed down to read one every few years. Anyway, this was one I loved —my all-time favourite novel by Steinbeck is Cannery Row. This is a follow-up, and Doc returns post-World War II to Cannery Row, finding it changed.

Cinversation with Three Wayfarers by Peter Weiss

I love discovering German writers I am unaware of, and Weiss should be better known. He is one of those experimental post-war German writers. Here is a tale of three brothers that cross over, and you are never quite sure who is who.this was for 1962

The Boat in the evening by Tarjei Vesaas

This was the first book I read by Vesaas and all thanks to the 1968 club year this book captures the remote rural Norway he lived in so well.

Beards Roman Woman by Anthony Burgess

Now, when push comes to shove, and I have to pick my all-time favourite writer, sadly, it isn’t a writer in translation; it is Burgess, so underrated still, and he wrote more than just Clockwork Orange. This sees a writer rather like Burgess himself who spent many years in Italy, here we see Beard and his liaisons as he is trying to write a screenplay, this was from 1976.

The end of the family story by Peter Nadas

Nadas for me writers about the soul of post-war Hungary, and here again is a tale of how a family coped post World War II in the country, told from the perspective of the grandson looking back on the year of his grandparents and parents. This was for the 1977club.Nadas, sadly missed out on the Nobel to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, I felt.

The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

This fell just right. I had just joined a streaming service featuring Eastern European films, and this was one of them, and it was also a choice for Club 1970. A detective gets stuck at a remote inn as the snow cuts them off, people start dying, and strange things begin to happen. The film is worth watching as it has a seventies vibe and decor, and its setting

What ave been your favourite books over the last ten years of the club