March 2026 Booker Month 26

April 1, 2026 ~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

It is always the same at this time of year: before the Booker, there was the old IFFP prize. I always start by reading the longlist of prizes. I was very pleased when this year’s longlist came out, as it had books I had planned to read. It was a journey that started in Bulgaria, with a second story I read about the Sworn Virgins. Then to France and an old favourite, Mathias Enard, and a tale about a father, war, and a deserter. Then we are in South America, and a pioneering woman living as a man. Then a man who has lost his memories of post-World War I is claimed by his wife, or is she? Then, families escape post-Shah Iran, and it follows them in Germany and back to Iran, where a woman is a witch in a small village where her daughters are. Then, a memoir of a director who got caught in Nazi Germany and still made films about making films under the Nazis Regime. Then, a break, and a stunning tale of a woman who lost her identity in a government glitch and struggles to keep her Baby. Then a pair of women, one Japanese, one Taiwanese, travel Taiwan on a year-long tour and eat their way around.

Book of the month

I will pick this, it is a great gem of a book. I want to avoid pinning a Booker as we are in the middle of our shadow jury debates. This book was written when Miha Mazzini saw a report about the 20,000-plus people removed from Slovenian government records. A tale of a pregnant woman finds she has vanished from government records, and they may take her newborn.

Non-book events

Watching-wise, I am in the middle of a binge of the cosy crime series Shakespeare and Hathaway.With Mark Benton as an ex-police officer, now a PI and his new partner played by jo Joyner. I love the way they play off one another, and Benton has a great world-worn feel about his acting style.Then, at the end of the month, I am trying to add a film or two. I watched a 90s film called The Outpost, a Kafka-esque tale of a woman promoted, or is she sent to a remote outpost in Hungary, in a trip that takes many days to get there. Then I brought a few albums: Black Country New Road, Geese 3D Country, and a collection of Daniel Johnson’s works on vinyl.

Next month

I will review the final two Booker longlist books. Then it is Karen and Simon’s club 1961. For which I have already bought several books.I am starting them soon. Then I have a couple of new books, and the EBRD literature prize shortlist came out today; I hope to read a few from it. before the winner is announced, but it does have the epic Polish novel Ice on it . What are your plans for the next month ?

Febuary 26 round up and a quick booker international reaction

March 1, 2026March 1, 2026 ~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

I eased a bit this month, mainly just a little tired and fed up with the weather the last month has left me feeling drained. I managed just three books for the first Hungarian Lit Month. But I will be doing it again next year for sure. I also read a Norwegian minor classic, the first English translation in the US from Vietnam. A tale of a husband passing and the years-earlier meeting him, the romance, and then a woman escaping her family in Tanzania. I managed one new country. I am trying to get at least one a month throughout this year. I recently picked up a number of Books from Around Africa. Anyway, it was a good month, just a little slow. I think we are all wishing for a number of sunny days in a row in the UK.

Book of the month

It has been a hard month to pick a great book, since they were all good reads. But I love it when you read a book and go, “That’s different.” This was that sort of book that left me wanting to read another by him, which I know Seagull have brought out. A book that captures a strange boy growing into an odder man, all around his need to be ill or to deal with people who are ill, an unusual book.

Non-Book events

Well, I started to watch the second series of Hijack with Amanda. I feel Apple make the best short series. This follows Idris Elba as he hijacks a Berlin U-Bahn train, but, as with the first series, there are a number of unseen twists and turns along the way. I then spent a lot of time watching old crime series, CSI, Monk, sort of comfort TV for the dull weather.

Then music-wise I brought two newish albums, Dry Cleaning a band that has a unique singer and style I had their first album, and I heard a couple of tracks of this new album and decided to get it. Then I got Heavy Metal, which had come back in stock, and I love Geese, who Cameron Winter is the lead singer of Geese, but this is more personal and heart-wrenching in places.

Then my Local shop had a sale on Tallbird records, which has a great selection, so I got Seasick Steve, whom I’ve been a fan of since his Jools Holland appearance years ago. I had a lot of his albums, but lent them to someone and never got them back. Anyway, nice tohear him again. Then Jason Isbell is a singer that is growing on me over time, and it’s nice to find a bargain, then I saw Pinegrove mention a few years ago, so I thought I’d give them a whirl.

Next month and Booker reaction

The International Booker longlist came out last week, and I am again part of the shadow Jury. I love doing this; it is a highlight of my year. I look forward to seeing my fellow jurors’ views on the books. My initial reaction was a little shocked; not one of the Akoya books had made the list. I felt sure Helle Helle or Liliana Colanzi, two writers whom I have featured on the blog with earlier books. SO to the longlist, I had read three books

On Earth as it is beneath by Ana Paula Maia

Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur

The Wax Child by Olga Ravn

Then I had on my tbr

The Duke by Matteo Melchorrie

She Who Remains by Rene Karabush

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje

The Deserters by Mathias Enard

So they would have been read by me in the meantime; I have read She who remains, and I have read them in the last few days. I hadn’t made a prediction list, but I would picked from books I won or had read, so these may have been on the list

I have brought all the other books on the list and am awaiting a few, but have another three of the rest of the books I had: Taiwan travelogue and The Director Down to be brought and read at some point. The one book I wasn’t very familiar with was The Nights are Quiet in Tehran. Elsewhere, I have read other books by Marie Ndiaye. Overall, I am happy with the longlist; it is maybe the best in the last couple of years. It sees ten years of the Booker, and it is 15 years of Shadow Juries with us doing the old IFFP prize in a number of years before the Booker took over. I will be posting my first couple of reviews next week, and most of the month will be reading the longlist. I hope to throw in a couple of other books, but I will have to see how it goes. What did you make of the Booker longlist ? Will you be reading the books? Which books did you want on the list?

January 2026 I hit the ground running round up post

February 1, 2026 ~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

Well, I had intended to get on top of what books I have read and reviewed this month. I have nearly cleared a backlog of some books from last year and reviewed a mix of what I had unreviewed from the back end of last year. So we had a couple of English crime novels: one from World War I and a modern book looking back on the making of a famous game. Then four Japanese books, two epic crime novels, a modern retelling of a classic story, and a work of non-fiction by Murakami were my contributions to the various Japanese challenges this time of year. Then a couple of books from Fotzcarraldo, the latest Fose, and BRIAN WHICH I had on my Radar for a while. Then two modern classic writers, Mahfouz and Dagerman, reminded me how woefully under-read I am as a reader. Which is why I often moan at creators who position themselves as well-read and aren’t, in the broader sense, readers. Finally, two new countries for the blog, the Faroe Islands, well, it’s not a country, but a Danish island miles from anywhere,e and then to StLucia in the Caribbean. One of the best months on this blog in recent times. Also, a new two new publishers in the Caribbean writers list and the Verba Mundi series as well

Book of the month

It has been a tough choice, but this book is one I will want to reread over the years. The book’s passion for cinema reminded me of the films I have yet to see. I know there is another book coming out that focuses more on classical music, which I hope will spark a little more interest in it in my life.

Non Book events

I am one for trying to spend less time on my phone these days, so Amanda and I caught the series Girl Taken with Alfie Allen, about a teacher who kidnaps and rapes and makes a twin live in a cellar, a twin from his school, he wanted the other sister, but had kidnapped the wrong one. The series was well-paced. The only thing I hated was the film in Spain in the Basque Country, and it is so obviously not the UK, but they make it out to be, which lets it down for me. I mentioned Brian. I was trying to watch a few more films. One I really enjoyed last month was Genius, which was about the writer Tomas Wolfe and his editor, who was the man who had found F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wolfe was a writer who was one of a kind, it seemed, and was one who lived fast and died young. This book captured his life. It also made me want to read Wolfe later this year if anyone else is interested in reading him alongside me? Music-wise, it has been a quiet start to the year. I only picked up Dry Cleaning’s third album, their debut, and this one appealed to me, and I also got Sleaford Mods. This group has a unique sound and is very political in its lyrics, which capture the underbelly of England. They are maybe the heirs to Mark E. Smith’s The Fall for the modern age. I will also point to the songs from Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg after the horror of people getting shot by gun-happy so-called law enforcement officers, as America seems to be descending into a fascist state along the lines of the early years of Hitler, where the state starts to wipe out the opposition to their voice. Horrific scenes and a leader that seems more interested in grabbing resources around the world than actual diplomacy, anyway, I have held back saying anything about this situation too long. If reading world literature teaches you anything, suffering and terror are the same and have the same roots, and the same sort of people run these regimes, no matter where and when, the outcome is always scary.

Next Month

Back to Books, and it is Hungarian lit month. I have a couple of books to read and will get to them later this week. Other than that, we see the Booker International Longlist on the last day of this month, and yes, there will be another year of shadowing the prize for me. Now, I think it is more about being with the same group of people for so many years. The community we have every year for this prize is actually a highlight in my blogging year. I will also say that I welcome people to join us. I think there will be a post about it in a couple of weeks, as we see Ten years of the International Booker, and this will be the 15th year of shadowing, as we did the old IFFP prize before its current incarnation as the International Booker. It means that every year there are 12 or 13 books. We are getting near 200 books, and we will have reviewed for the shadow jury, with at least 5 or 6 reviews of each book, which means the shadow jury will have put out over 1000 reviews in its time!

Nearly the end of 2025 the November round up

November 28, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

I managed nine reviews last month. The first three books saw me revisiting a Detective in Hamburg, then a slim work around the war from a great writer at the start of his career. Then a work from a writer around another war at the end of a very long Career. See a trio of German writers. Then we headed to Austria for a Cafe in the corner of a market in Vienna. A book about a gfhost sister from a Nobel winner. A man on a train tries to forget all he has seen and just drifts off into Berlin. Then a famous Character from Goethe reconnects with him many years later, after their lives went in different directions. Günter Grass has a look at his homeland via a couple in Asia in the late 1970s. Then a wax doll narrates a witch hunt in 17th-century Denmark.

Book of the month

The Other girl by Annie Ernaux

I read this on a hard day, and it reminded me what an escape a book can be and what a great writer Annie Eernaux as she again takes apart her own families past in a short book about a sister she never knew.

Non-book things life in general

I had a tough time when Amanda had her stents done at the start of the month. I always struggle when the clocks. Go back. I love long summer night. So, with that, and a bad cold for me in the last week as the weather turned a little colder, which always seems to spark a sore throat and runny nose. But that has passed, and I have taken a few days and will not post a review until Monday now. Other than that, my TV watching has been what I would call comfort food, as I have watched the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries; in fact, I still have a few to watch. These hallmark mysteries are easy to watch and have helped me chill recently. I returned to work in the middle of the month, as I had been off since Amanda’s heart attack, so life is slowly getting there. I now take our days one day at a time. Thankful to have my darling wife still there. A bright spot today was the Record Store Day releases. I treated myself to some records

First off, a 10-inch from The Nationals, Mett Berninger, with four tracks from his last Album, live. I have his Album as well as most of The Nationals’ records. The second is a collection of tracks by Wilco and Jeff Tweedy from the last 15 years, all released on dBpm. A collection of rarties.I am a huge Wilco fan and Tweedy as well I recently got his new triple album.

Next, some very early Talking Heads sessions. I was late to Talking Heads, maybe getting into them in the mid-90s, but they made some outstanding records, and it’s interesting to hear how different this early stuff was. Then a live set from 1994 by Carter USM, a pop-punk band that had a great turn in its lyrics, with a lot of clever wordplay and good social commentary at the time. In fact, they could do with coming back. I wonder what titles they come up with for their songs now.

Next month

I needed to clear a backlog of books read, awaiting review, which currently stands at 7 books. I am slowly working through Tom’s Crossing, and I am in no hurry to finish this book, so don’t expect a review until next year. To supplement that, I have several shorter books I want to read before the end of the year, but I have no list or order for them. They are on my trolley downstairs, and a few are here in my reading room, so we will see what I get too. What are your plans to round off 2025?

September /October two months round up

October 31, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 6 Comments

I didn’t do a round-up of the two books I read in September, after Amanda’s heart attack. I didn’t get to post, and yesterday, Amanda had her stent put in. So touch wood, everything will start getting back to normal now. Anyway, in September, I read a lost classic by Franz Werfel and a book that seems more apt on class and image by Simone de Beauvoir, both excellent. Then, in October, I started with some modern Icelandic classics by a female writer. Then off to wander Siena, talk to a lost father, and Art. Then, with a great poet on an eye-opening weekend in Paris. Then a family look back at the Angolan war and its effect on their family. Then, is it the end of the world? A short novella. Then Amna captures his wife with his partner in Victorian Portugal. Then, to Russia, a man returns from the war to find the factory and his wife have changed. Then we have a man discovering a ray and some animals getting loose and out of hand. Early Jeeves stories and finally an odd family observed in a lost classic. I am still behind, but I have had a productive October, reviewing 10 books and writing a couple of other posts.

Book of the months

The Splendor of Portugal by António Lobo Antunes

He is one of my favourite writers, and I still have one of his books to read. This captures the madness of the Angolan war, but not just that, the whole area is captured in the book. I said this is maybe a lot of Europe’s Vietnams in the way the wars unfold and the violence, etc. I have a couple more from him on my TBR.

Non-book things

One great series I watched was the new series of Slow Horses. This time, I felt it had a bit more humour in it than other series. I also have enjoyed the classic series of Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars on Talking Pictures TV. I have been trying to cut back on my YouTube and watch series. My current series watching is Foyle’s War. Music-wise, there is a tremendous new Jeff Tweedy album. I, in fact, picked up the triple LP today. The album came out a few weeks ago, but the vinyl followed a few weeks later. I also love Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska 82, as that was my favourite album from Springsteen.

Next month

Well it is German Lit month I have a few books in mind. A few crime books a choice of Thomas Mann books. I have a lot of books I have read to review that I want to clear this month. I hope to get them removed and to review a good few books for German Lit month. I feel I am in a purple patch, blogging-wise and reading-wise.

What are your plans ?

Summers end August 2025

August 31, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 2 Comments

I think I had a really good Women in Translation month this year. I managed to read 11 books. I wanted a couple more, but with work and family time, etc., 11 is a good month for me. I also reviewed books from eleven countries this month, managing to obtain books from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, so it was a truly global experience. Also, a mix of old and new writers, this is, for me, my best month of reading this year.

Book of the Month

It actually is a month where most of the. Books I could pick as the book of the month, this just gets the nod, as I feel it is an essential book. When it was written it was one of the few books written in Russia that dealt with the Purges Stalin did, and a lot of the book is based on what actually happened to the writer in her own life.

Non book things this Month

I spent a bit at the recent Tallbird sale at my local record shop, as there haven’t been many new albums to grab me last month.

So I brought the Ratso Album Larry Sloman has been around for years, a musician who had worked with both Dylan and John Cale, I had seen this and I got it mainly as Nick Cave is on one of the songs with Him! Then the Levellers lockdown sessions have a few of their albums, like a few of their songs, and most of them are on this album. The Idles’ Brutalism is something I hadn’t encountered in any form, and I have most of their other albums on vinyl. As one of my favourite bands of recent years, their lyrics are more critical now than ever. Finally, Jsson Isbell is one of the best singer-songwriters around at the moment. TV-wise, a couple of new series have started, including Alien Earth, which nods to the original film and other moments in the film series, and is very good. I also began watching the series about the Amanda Knox case. I am in two minds about it at the moment, so I’m not sure if I will finish it., I’m going to watch the next episode, then weigh it up. I also caught the Thursday Murder Club film, a fun piece of cosy crime with a good cast, including four main stars, and a stunning setting for the nursing home. Let’s hope they keep that cast as it is and do his other books. I can’t wait for Slow Horse next month I think that it is by far my favourite tv series of recent times.

Next Month

Off to a bang with a Book by a writer who was up for the Nobel till he died a month before it was awarded, an early novella that has been made into a film several times and is coming out this week. I will be reviewing it this week. Other than that, I have no real plans or a TBR of books ready to read for a change. I know that over the next couple of months, there are things I do every year, so this will be a nice month for reading by whim, as Simon Savidge always says. How has your month been have you any plans for next month? Oh and the blog will also pass 1500 reviews this month !!!!!!

June So hot The month on winstonsdad

June 30, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

I reviewed nine books on the blog last month. I would have done more, but over the previous few days, I have been too hot to sit and write well. But this month I started in Jpaana with a story connecting the nuclear disaster of recent years with the falling of the bombs at the end of the war. Then the tale of two brothers and the wife and lover that connects them is a classic of Serbian Literature. Then a journey through what =cities mean and how they grow and are in a way, a living thing. Then tales in Berlin from a Latavian point of view. Mr Dalloway to tie in with it coming out 100 years ago. Then the story of a Spanish writer in Paris writing a book with the same title as this book about him writing that book. Then a woman discovers that her father wasn’t the man she thought he was after inheriting his country home, as she writes to her long-lost sister. Then we finished on a warm evening in Paris, rather like the weather we are having at the moment, and two couples each have their own reason for being there. After this night, nothing will be the same !!

Book of the month

I chose these two books because they both remind me of the early Peirene books, can be read in a single sitting, and feel much more than they appear to be. Just a little dinner captures two couples, each person at the dinner table with something on their mind and something to tell and figure out. Then the river sees a woman hurt after the loss of her sister many years ago, rediscovering a father she never knew as a different man than her mother had told her.

Non book events

Well, I started two new TV series this month and watched all the episodes of another. First, the comedy we binge-watch is The Power of Parker, a comedy set in Stockport written by Sian Gibson, who worked with Peter Kay on Car Share. The humour is very northern. And it is a little surreal in place but a great early 90s soundtrack and lots of references to that time made Amanda and me watch it in a few weeks. Then there is Countdown, a series on Prime following a team brought together to find out who killed a cop, and the series seems to stumble onto more than just the drugs angle to the death. Then, Smoke on Apple TV, which I have been looking forward to, follows two arson investigators as they solve a series of arson cases involving arsonists on the rampage. It boasts Apple’s usual high production value and is slow-paced so far. Then, music-wise, I got the latest Half Man Half Biscuit album, which has an excellent track record. Store Day is a tongue-in-cheek pop song about the record store day and how much things cost. I also picked up the new Pulp Lp. But my main buy was the fantastic collection of lost Springsteen albums, the Lost Albums tracks 2 collection. I’ve loved the La Garage LP so far, which falls between Nebraska, my favourite Springsteen album, and Born in the USA. Also, some great Western-style tracks for a film that never saw the light of day. The seven albums demonstrate his exceptional talent; this is the material he had previously withheld. It is as good as anything he released at the time.

Month ahead

Well, I’m thinking I’m on holiday, so I plan to read more non-translated books than translated books this month. I have a British crime novel that I picked up a few weeks ago, which I thought I would like, set in the North of England in a large house. Later this week, we also get the Wainwright prize for the Nature writing longlist. A prize that I have read several books from the longlist over the last few years. So, I will do the same again when that comes out, as I love nature writing. Other than that, I have a few books I have brought with summer reading in mind. What are your plans for July?

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May 25 A great month of reading

May 31, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ Leave a comment

I feel this is one of the best months of reading I have had for a while it started with me half trying the book a day in May. But I knew as last year with my shift pattern, it is very hard to try and do I have a pattern of two 11 1/2 shifts, then two days off, rolling on my rota, so some days after leaving home just after seven and coming back at half eight, it is hard to focus on a book. However, this month was a real journey; the first book of the month saw three Spaniards in London learn of Ezra Pound’s passing and follow his footsteps in London. Then Innew york a librarian became obsessed with Melville and an outlandish architect.. Then we visit villages and flowers in a wonderfully unique collection of short stories from Spain. A writer meets a woman, hears her story, but is it his story? Is this life a loop, meeting at different points? Next, we see a girl at a private school fighting to be herself. Then we learn about paths and how they used to be the pipeline in England many years ago. Blue postcards in a book obsessed with Blue. In late summer, a young girl recalled that the Balkan war hit a small village. Then a man sees his wife fight for justice, as he was killed for seeing something. Then we had a lot of historical fiction about Abbots. A writer has writer’s block and then goes to a retreat with the cream of writers in this fever dream of a book. Then another slice of Ernaux, and this time she is obsessed with who her ex is seeing.Lately, a granddaughter has taken care of her ailing grandmother in a small rural village. One new publisher, Linden Editions, with two books. No new countries.

Books of the month

I picked these two as they are both from the Balkans, one of the most well-known writers in Evald Fislar, and his tale of a writer’s block and a fever dream of how he overcame it. Then, in Magadalen Blažević, we have a new voice and her story of one girl’s last summer before the walk hits their remote village.

Non-book events

I watched The Game, the new series with Jason Watkins and Robson Green, which has a serial killer move in next to the detective who nearly caught him! A great short series. Music-wise, there were a couple of female singers who had new albums out on 4AD, a label I love. First was Lustre by Irish singer Maria Somervile, where you can just drift away. Jenny Hval’s album Iris Silver Mist is a little more experimental, and finally, Robert Forster has recorded an 8-track album in Oslo called Strawberries. It is just wonderful to see a singer like him having a great later career in his singing.

Next month

Well I recently commented on Mookse and gripes’ discord about their episode around reading goals and said I tend to not have them as I never keep to them, apart from the Booker International and the Years Club, Simon and Karen do. so, after reading many books early on last month, I think I will do the same this month. I’ve a few books on the go that I hope to finish in the next few days. I also have a couple of crime novels in translation that I hope to get too. Other than that I will see where my reading takes me as ever. What are your plans for next month ?

April showers did it rain books ?

April 30, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

I t was a bumper month for reviews. I managed 11 reviews. We start in Romania, following a teacher in a dark, surreal Bucharest. Then of to Croatia and a story of a man coming home from the war. Then another war, this time the current conflict in Ukraine, is seen through the woman having to cope with the loss and changes to their life it brings.Then, a girl is considered a witch in a distant village in Ecuador. Then, humans have to start evolving to survive and flourish. THEN we see through two neighbours what happens when, one day, all the citizens from Palestine just disappear, how does everyone and the government take it. Then a man seeks refuge from the end of the Second World War in a house untouched by the war, as things happen. The lives of the two brothers as Vikings are retold in retellings of the Icelandic sagas. Then a man goes to find a new man to make palm wine in a folk tale-like trip. Then a woman hunts for a sailor she just saw and fell in love with, and now is trying to find him. Then the Second War is ending as we see this view from the point of view of a German prisoner in a concentration camp, as it all starts to draw in around the Germans, will the narrator survive to the end ? Well, I had one new country, Ecuador, the first this year. It’s getting hard to tick off countries, as there are fewer than there were a few years ago.

Book of the month

It is hard; there were a few longlist prize-winning books, but this hit home and had that small epic feel to the writing. It’s a book that I will think about for a long time after I finish it. Some of the descriptions of the world and nature were staggering.

Non book events

Well it was Record Store Day this month, and an early start and further back than other years, even though I was there at five. I did get a few records. Highlights included Pale Saints’ slow-building.Hindu Love Gods, which is a collaboration between REM and Warren Zevon, created this single album; it has a blues feel to it. Then I also brought lps Talking Heads live, Belly (and a few more as well). TV-wise, it has been YouTube. With the country diary of an Edwardian lady, a twelve-part series follows the diary month by month. It wasn’t till I watched it this month that I saw it was filmed very near where my dad lives.The second series I had missed when I was younger, Squadron, follows an RAF squadron in the early 80s. Ok, this is very dated politically. But great to see the old planes flying. Other than that, the second series of the Star Wars series, Andor, is the best of them. It is a political thriller in style, with action, and never quite sure how the tale will turn out which makes it refreshing.

Next month

It will be mostly novellas next month. Plans are up in the air, and I don’t really have any books in mind. The only thing I can say is the recent turn of the club’s year last week has made me think that I need to read some of my backlist and the old books on my TBR. I have a few books already read to review. I’m in a good place, blogging-wise. In fact, every day, really. I’m not wanting to jinx it. My mental health is maybe in the best place it has been for at least five years. I have just finished a few sessions of talking therapy, which has helped me so much this time around. I think it shows in my blogging, to some extent. Hope you all had a good month, and remember it’s good to talk if you are struggling with your mental health!

Feburary 2025 Booker international month and what else ?

March 1, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 1 Comment

Well, February was another slow month of reviewing, and the library is still being done. I am a master of demand avoidance. I have shelves up, a new record stand up, and the bookcase comes next week, so I hope to have the room done in the next two weeks and get a new chair for my room when I see how much room there is. I start with a novel about a stranger over staying his welcome, then the first of two Spanish novels from Foundry editions, the first a hunt for a lighter once owned by one of the Krays. Then a proust like novel about the Austro hungarian empire from the point of view of an English family setting up a factory there. Then I finished Swanns Way but have fallen behind with the second volume of Porust. I love finding out about Marcel and Swann and their summer childhoods. Then a Mother and daughter spend time as the mother dies. Then, the second Spanish Novel and then the last book, a slim volume that is part of the Repulic of Consciousness Prize.

Book od the month

Like a Sky Inside is one of those books you have a feeling about before you read it, just from the blurb. It is going be a book you love, and this was, in fact, one of my favourite books of recent times. Art, family , memories and a night in the Louvre gallery what is not to love !!

Non book events

I haven’t brought many records this year with record store day due and the room being a little bit in Chaos. I watched a BBC series that was on YouTube called STRANGE A EX PREIST FIGHTS THE DEVIL IN modern-day London with Ian Richardson as the local bishop trying to keep all this under wraps. I missed this at the time. I loved most of the things I saw Ian Richardson in; one of those character actors should’ve been better known. I watched Daughters of the Dust, about a group of African Americans living on the American coast and living in their own world. Then I watched one part of the trilogy of films The White and the one with a great twist in the tale. Then Matt and Maura, an old couple, reunited just as Maura is struggling in her marriage. Mtt, a writer, appears. It is a film about what might happen, but it never gets there. It shows how the path we take in life sometimes is right.

Next month

I’ve fallen behind reviewing this year, but once my room is done, I will have more time and be keener to review books. Anyway, the Booker International came out, and since it came out, I have been keener on this year’s list of 13 new writers. New languages to read from a mix of novellas, novels, and short stories are fascinating. I have read one and have two more I am currently reading. I read Solenoid last year. I will be rereading it and reviewing it this time. I need to get back on track with Proust and my classic reading for this year. Also, the EBRD Shortlist is due out near the end of the month. I will be reviewing these books in a solo project and doing the usual shadow booker with the guys I’ve been doing it with for a year. What are your plans for next month? Are you reading any books from the booker list?

January 2025 A slow start to the year

February 1, 2025 ~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

I managed just seven reviews for the first month of the year. I start with a few French classics and then a book following Mozart. Then, the daring early avatars’ lives told. Then a woman goes on a killing spree. A doctor’s wife tells her life with an overbearing mother. Then a final Japanese novella that I didn’t really get on with. No New countries and no new publishers.

Book of the month

I loved this book about those early pilots flying over the Andes as the earliest commercial flight started taking off the ground. I have a couple other of his books on my tbr I hope to get to this month.

Non-Book moments

January is slow for new albums, and I haven’t brought any as of yet this year. I streamed the Newq Anne B savage album, which is the second I have the debut album. This album is good I loved the song Donegal as it is a place I have many happy thoughts about. On TV, Skelton Crew finished a little bit of an anti-climax in the end. Then I love a bit of cheesy crime TV, so the new series of the good ship murder has been fun, a silly holiday destination crime series. Chanel Fives’ take on Death in Paradise has a few twists. Then at the end of the month, Disney Plus had a new series High Potenial a sort of Female Monk a woman with a high IQ and unique way of viewing the world gets a job as a detective after solving a case whilst working as a cleaner at the police station.

Next Month

I think I will be slow for a while. I am still just in the middle of sorting my reading room, office, and library. This involves storing a lot of books as I need a clear out. Then, I will buy new bookcases and a new hi-fi unit with some shelves. I am not the quickest at this. I hope to have it all done by the end of February. I am also mixing some new books in I had dreamed of reading Classics all year, but I now know after a Month the reason I don’t read a lot of classics is maybe I was too caught up in the latest thing, but that said I still have several new books building up over the month I will be reading a few new books each month just keep on top of my subscriptions and prize list I brought the five translated books on the republic of consciousness US longlist that came out earlier this month. I am still a million overdoing the Booker International. I have shadowed for so many years, and I can’t think of not doing it. I may do a piece when my library is done I am looking forward to it. Done, I don’t cope well with the Chaotic Room, and this room is the place I blog from these days. I will be happier when it is all finished. What are your plans for next month?

That was the month November 2024

December 1, 2024December 2, 2024 ~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

I managed 8 books this month, I started at a hold-up and hostages at a hotel min Hamburg that had a connection to events in Latin America many years before. Then a tremendous heartwrenching piece of Christmas writing about a family struggling in Norway. Then an East German wandered Budapest as a way to the last forty years in Germany from Nazism to Communism and what effect it has had on his life whilst discovering Budapest. Then a man comes full circle, trying to not be his father but never escaping the small village he came from no matter how far away he went, the past and the present always connect. Then, two books, one a collection of pieces found after a Swedish academic died he had spent forty years in the library, and this is an espresso shot of his thoughts. Then Elias Canetti spent years trying to fight death, collecting thoughts on death from himself and other writers. Then, one of the best Norweigan writers, Tarjei Vesaas, in a less-known book about a man who kills a girl he is mentally unwell, but the island turns on him. Then we finished off with a piece of experience writing a bare-bones journal from a writer who sadly recently died and was a member of the Gruppe 47 post-war writers.

Book of the month

I LOVED THE FEEL MOPF THIS YOU CAN TEWLLIT HAD BEEN WRESTLED WOITH FOR YEARS I said it had been trimmed and trimmed to this was what a very clever man had left a collection that could easily set you forth on a lifetime of connecting the dots he wrote about even further.In your mind, it is a project that I think a few people may take, going down the rabbit hole, and that is this book of ideas.

Non-book events

We watched one great film, Blitz, by Steve McQueen, which had a young boy in the central role who played the main character. He had a real presence and the ability to speak volumes in silence. Then we watched a series from a few years ago, Cold Call, about a woman and man who tracked down the people who took the money she had just got from selling her house. It was on Channel Five a few years ago, but we missed it the first time around. Music wish, I think I had mentioned the new Cure album last time, which I did eventually get on vinyl, as well as these records this month.

First up is the latest from Father John Misty, a singer I have been into since he was in Fleet Foxes many years ago. He had an early album out as J Tilman and has gone by the name Father John Misty since then. This is good, I didn’t connect with his last album that had the 30s feel to it this went back to the style I used to from him. Then two from my local record shop where they sell two for 30 after a while i got the Bright eyes collection of early demlos I have most of Bright eyes and Conor Oberst who is the singer and band really. Then, Richard Dawson is from Newcastle and evokes the area and this reminds me of the years I spent in Northumberland, with an epic forty-minute track from him. Then I was looking for something else entirely and saw these two on offer on the Mute website the last two albums from the reformed Crime and the City solution. The reformed band well Simon Bonney and a new group of Musicians This band should have been as big as Nick Cave, really but they never quite matched them as they tried a similar path in Berlin in the early 80s and both Australian singers .

Next month

I think the two books I showed in yesterdays post will be reviewed and i have another two novellas. I am struggling with the blog , the fact that I feel it now is something to be proud of, and I feel that I move forward. I need a new challenge. I mentioned just reading classics next year, which may still be on the cards, but I feel I need a new challenge to wrestle. I have long talked of trying to work this all into some sort of guide to world lit where a theme could be shown to connect books about war, villages, coming of age, being parents, etc. This has been on the back burner for years as it is an interesting way of grappling people and giving them some exciting books from around the world. I had, for a while yesterday, made the blog private. My mind is always working around the blog, but my time to blog seems less, and so is my reading time. I need to spend less time daydreaming around the blog and just blog. One of the problems with being neuro v=diverse is a constant thinking around the reading and the blog. Yesterday I just was drained and annoyed as i hadn’t a book to review time of year etc. Oh well, that is enough of drifting in my mind. I need to get these new ideas and challenges off the ground and see where I end up. I can be very flighty, but for me, my neurodiversity makes me great at my day job as I am just the same when I working with someone I am always working and looking at their life as a whole and what we can do to help often disappoint we can’t do more as I want everyone to have the best support they can, i always did this when working with people and feel that is what I can pass on to people that love of connection and the difference you as a support worker can make both big and small to someone’s life.

October 2024 Round up

October 31, 2024 ~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

I managed 10 reviews last month. I said a week or so ago that I may ease off a bit, but let’s see. This month I went from A danish novel set in Italy. Then, a Swiss novella is set in a creepy hospital doing a miracle op on a woman, which we see from one of the nurses’ points of view as she falls for a fellow nurse. Then, a woman traced her mother, who abandoned her, one of the most influential books I have read in recent years. Then a detective goes to solve a crime with his team on an island stuck in the past with two families running it. Then we stepped back for a collection of books first published in 1970. Count Julian sees a man look back on his beloved Spain with a bitter eye from North Africa. Then, a detective heads to a remote inn set in the mountains for nothing, it seems, but then something happens overnight. Then, a young man gets his heart broken in Rome. A man buys a lime factory and tries to write a great opus but never entirely does. Then kills his wife. Thedr a endless stream of sex and violence in a book banned in France. To end the month an affair in photographs from Nobel winner Anne Ernaux.

Book of the month

Your Little Matter is one of those books I read in translation for those gems worldwide. It is a tale of an abandoned child tracing her mother to work out why she was abandoned and to know a Woman she never fully knew ! A new publisher is the third book from Foundry Editions, which is a publisher worth trying.

Non book matter

Here is where I chatted about non-bookish things over the last month. There was a few rec0rds I got. I visited the local record fair and it was National albmu day. So I had an Idlewild and Prefab sprout album from the National Album Day selections. I got albums from the record fair over the month by Songs Ohio, Destroyer, Dead Can Dance. The Until the End of the World soundtrack (I had this on tape years ago and also a CD, but it is one of the best film soundtracks ) , Simon Raymonde’s Solo works and Mercury prize-winning English teacher. I also brought a new Paul Heaton Album and book for Amanda and me to see him next year in Sheffield. Then I also got the Wolfgang Press new album (More 4AD bands ) and then to be a bit with the hip kids Geordie Creeps’ debut solo album, the former Black Midi lead singer. A rather lot of records, more than normal, but I hit one record fair on a good day and brought more than usual. Series wise Amanda and I watch Queens Gambit both loved this not sure why it took us to now to watch it and are working through Maid on Netflix a series based on a new york times best seller of how hard it is to get by in the US with no money. We had a nice day in York, although it may have given me a cold looking at the ghost, and just two days ago, My wonderful Wife passed her driving test for the first time. I am so pleased for her, and it also means I haven’t to drive her to work and pick her up, which means I will have a chance to lie in and thus should be able to blog with the time and not get up early every day. How was your month outside books?

Next month

Well, it is German Lit Month, but there is also the New Month from Bellezza, Norway in November. I hope to review a couple of books. For each, I have read one book already. Let’s see what else I can find to read. I hope to read Robert Walser at some point, a writer missing from the writers I have read. I also have a great Book from a prize-winning writer, their latest novel, I’m reading, AND a Yiddish novel to read. What plans have you for next month ?

September 2024 A month of reading

October 1, 2024 ~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

Well, in the month, I started in Japan with a cat manned Cafe solving people’s problems , then a daughter reflecting her violent father in a wonderful Swiss novel. Then a woman sends letters to her friend about her new job on the coast, trying to get kids to read as she also feels a lot of freedom. Then a couple have there hoilday plans changed and the look at the relationship. Then I had a duo of Patrick Modiano novels as ever he deals with his home of Paris and how memories are used. Then we go to New Jersey, and one Greek American family and their home town fell apart, and as it does, their American dream falls apart. Then, a quartet of students take a road trip and imagine picking grapes, but then they see the horrors of factory farming, get drunk, and fall apart. Then a woman sees how her Husband may leave her for a young colleague. I have been stuck in a Europe a lot this month and a lot of new fiction. No new countries one new publisher.

Book of the Month

I’ve went for My favourite as it is such a heartwrenching and powerful account of a violent father and the impact that can have on all those around him years later. How do you escape that violence? This book isn’t out yet, but worth getting it when it does !!

Non book things.

Well, with the whole Oasis reunion thing happening, I tried to get tickets but didn’t get any. It was no real loss; I was never a huge fan of them, but this month saw other bands return. Tindersticks had a new album out with much the same soulful dark murmured tones. Then we also had the return after ong breaks of two bands one well-known we had the first new song for nearly two decades from The Cure, I like it loads, but the intro maybe needed cutting a few mins, something of Classic Robert Smith in the singing dark and brooding harking back to the early cure a lot I felt. Then, The Wolfgang Press, a band I love returned after a long break. This album Is classic of their sound and sounds like they have never been away. They are a band that never quite got big but had a talented singer and a great sound. But maybe a touch to left field. They were a 4ad band, and the new album’s cover is. A nod toward the classic 4ad cover art. We watch The Night Sleeper, a techno-thriller series about a train being taken over. Is it a little far-fetched or was it because last week the rail system was seemingly hacked at stations.Then Slow Horse returned, and this time, it had a lot more action and a few new characters to discover.

Next Month

October means one thing: the Nobel Literature Prize is due next week. I usually do a guessing post, but I think I will wait and see who wins this year. I hope it is someone I have read. I would love to see Krasznahorkai or someone like Peter Nadas. Then it is Club 1970, run by Simon and Karen. I love there club years I alway order to many books to read this is the same thir year I have three books on hand a fourth just in the post today. I hope to find another book. I am trying a deep dive to find something left field more than I have. I’m not sure which yet, but let’s hope I find something like I have in mind. Then, near the end of the month, I will be turning Nordic with books read first in Norway in November from the fantastic Meredith !!!!!!

What are your plans for either of these events in the coming months if any ?

Category: round up

March 2026 Booker Month 26

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Febuary 26 round up and a quick booker international reaction

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January 2026 I hit the ground running round up post

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Nearly the end of 2025 the November round up

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September /October two months round up

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Summers end August 2025

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June So hot The month on winstonsdad

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May 25 A great month of reading

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April showers did it rain books ?

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Feburary 2025 Booker international month and what else ?

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January 2025 A slow start to the year

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That was the month November 2024

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October 2024 Round up

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September 2024 A month of reading

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