Tag: BOOKS

Winstonsdad running out of steam

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Over the last few months, since the international booker, I have run out of steam both blogging-wise and reading-wise. You know, when you get that thing where you just start this and that book so excited to try and find rthat beat thatg moment again to bottle the thing that you lover in your reading but then I turned around yesterday and saw I must have a dozen books with sort of base camps in them that first hundred pages read a marker in the sand but then mislaid and forgotten as I grabbed the next book that next chance of capturing and bottling the joy I often find in books. I have this ever so often, that moment of self-doubt, of worry about my reading tastes. I feel this is never helpful, where every person on social media seems to be posting their books, and you either feel you are out of the loop or you are under-read. However, in recent years, I have not felt that way, as I now view my reading as a reader who sees my reading journey as a sailing boat on the waters of world literature. So this is my doldrums period, that place in the middle of the Atlantic where there is no breeze. You just have to sit and wait to you catch the breeze or steam up again whether that is reading some of the wainwright longlist that came out yesterday and triggered this post when I saw how many books I had to finish or a gem I find next week I have a few days in Suffolk with Amanda I have an aunt that lives there I will be seeing. Other than that, I hope to visit Southwold and Aldeburgh while I’m there, both of which have bookshops, and I am like a bloodhound when it comes to finding bookshops in the wild. Anyway, I just wanted to post that I’m in the reading doldrums; no need to panic, regular service will resume next week after my holiday. How do you overcome these little dips in reading or enjoyment and wanting to read?

Better days ahead I hope

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Some of you may have seen me on Twitter yesterday saying I was low and had a bad day. I am off work at the moment. This all started with a change of routines and other things at work that sent me into a real spiral several things all happening at once is to much for me to cope with, so I have been off for a few weeks. I had seen an event and other stories in Sheffield. I rarely go to Sheffield, but we have been going early morning as I struggle with crowds and have been getting the tram, so I decided in my silly wisdom I may drive park up, and there is a new food hall I want to try at some point. But it had opened a week or two ago. Anyway I even paid for the parking but woke up yesterday and my mood has been low I also was struggling with the factor how busy it would be. If I go places alone, I always zone out with headphones and avoid crowded places, as I recall struggling with them. So I decide to cancel the trip which I was real annoyed with as I had let myself down so that was maybe the final straw on mental health yesterday was a tough day I was struggling all day. Hence, post on Twitter. In hindsight the fact I am putting in for an autstic diagnosis will explain a lot my routine in going places which is tend to be very early and going before the crowds get there. Changing too much is why I am off work, struggling to cope with work changes. Anyway. I sat and let amanda know how low I was which helped a bit I am going try get talking therapy with work. I struggle in most social situations I always thought it was just natural shyness, but in hindsight, it was maybe just the fact I am autistic and small talk is something I struggle with. I feel since I decided to talk about how I struggle with things like changes, breaking a routine like going on the tram but then think it is ok to drive to Sheffield like that. Then there is also how I struggle to talk in social situations. I may have worn a mask until I saw how much it affected me. I am constantly overwhelmed and often struggle with many small things. Anyway, I told Amanda I would try to say more; she is my rock. So I hadn’t sleep well but I want to make up for yesterday we head to Southwell a small town about an hour from us my best friend said He liked going there isn’t a lot there but a few shops the Minister and it is where the first Bramley apple was grown. It was also where Charles the first spent his last night, and  Byron lived there for a while. It also had a nice little second-hand bookshop. Anyway, we headed over, had a look in the bookshop books below, and also visited the minister’s, originally built in 1099 and extended over the years. Amanda brought me an angel keyring as she feels I need a guardian angel at the moment I think I do but today was better than yesterday. I will be trying to do some more reviews for Woman in translation month but I have cut my good reads and storygraph target back this may help.I just wanted to explain what is going on. This isn’t me looking for pity. I just want to clarify, as a man at a later age, that you may have had a condition your whole life that meant a lot of things in my past. Would have been easier and explain situations and just the way my life has panned out any way I am on the start of the journey to be diagnosed I have done all the tests out there which clearly show the tendency for being autistic. I am taking life one day at a time at the moment.

A day in Sheffield

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Amanda and I had planned to have a day out this weekend, but with  Snow and heavy rain forecast for Thursday and Friday, I decided to take a trip to Sheffield today; a few weeks ago, we headed to the edge of Sheffield and a few miles up the road I saw there was park and ride we passed near one of the Tram stations, as I hate driving in the centre of Sheffield we decided we head today. We did and headed into the heart of Sheffield. Even though we live nearby, this last year or two, we haven’t gone a lot to Sheffield. we arrived and headed to our first place. We passed this statue to the woman that worked in the steel mills in the war, iI hadn’t seen this before.we saw the ducks seemed to have made a home near the city hall which was sad see John lewis that was opposite it was empty , we used like a wander around there always something out of the ordinary to buy in there.

 

So i looked for a fantastic coffee shop, I am a fan of quirky coffee shops and found steam yard on Division Street, I should know that is where all the vintage stores are and also several good shops for clothes I had bought a long while ago any way we had a snack and coffee. in this coffee shop with coffee roasted by local roastery Caravan roasters. I got some beans to try at home from them.

I had the lemon meringue Cronut, I liked this although it wasn’t great for my diet. Amanda had a pan au chocolate. The coffee was nice. Also the atmosphere was great in the cafe.  So we headed to the moor area as Amanda wanted some items from there. As we headed towards there I found this excellent spray art on a gate to a Chinese restaurant. that caught my eye.

I just liked it. Amanda had got all her p=bits, so I headed to Waterstones with the idea of three books but eventually brought four, as the Sheffield store has a much larger selection than the shop in Chesterfield, so it gave me a chance to think of the Booker International is drawing nearer. So i got two contenders, two books had been on my radar and then one by a writer I had read a number of years ago that had a new translation out. Then a book from a writer that has been on my radar for the last decade at least and I decided it was time I brought a book from them.

First of is from a local publisher in Sheffield And other stories , a publisher I have been sent books from and have met them over the years. The book is Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright she has been on my radar for a number of years and this is her latest about a small aboriginal community is meant to be her best book.I like the new covers from other stories. They are direct and unusual. I will get her other books I think if I like this one.

This is a book I hadn’t seen about or mentioned, but I had read another book by Rolf Rathmann that Seagull books i  had brought and reviewed a number of years ago Fire Doesn’t burn. So this book sent near the ned of world war two told through a young girl eyes appealed as I liked the other book from him I read.

Now, this was the first of two I got because the booker is A Little Luck by Claudia Pinero, I had seen this a few times since it came out, and I had to see a second-hand copy, but I loved Elena knows by the same writer we read it when it was longlist for the booker. This book follows a woman returning to the scene of a shocking accident in Buenos Aires twenty years earlier that has brought a woman involved she and no one will know who she is as she is different than twenty years ago. Even her eyes are a different colour. I am intruged by this one and also how Charco have reposition Pinero as a writer.

This is the second book by Booker winner Lucas Rijneveld, set in a rural part of the Netherlands, and it follows the events around a farmer’s daughter and the local vet events that tear the local community apart. Lucas had written the booker international prize-winning The Discomfort of Evening. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of that book I enjoyed it enough to read this also I do like the cover art for this book. I could have got more books but held back.So we then had some lunch at the German Kebab shop and then headed home on the Tram a nice little trip and know we know how easy it is to get to Sheffield this way we may be going again sometime soon. I will find another coffee shop ? tips welcome . Have you read any of the writers or the books themselves ?

A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi

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A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi

Algerian fiction

Original title Nos Richesses

Translator – Chris Andrews

Source – Personal copy

I brought this in this year’s Waterstones sale. It caught my eye as it is about a famous bookshop in Algeria. Kaouther moved to France with her family when she was eight. One of her incredible memories is of her father taking her to the library every week( I used to love my library trips as a kid and actually still do, although I don’t use my library as much as I should these last few weeks have been great getting books for the woman in translation month). She took up writing after doing well in a short story contest while at university. This book is set in her homeland; she did go back to the mid-90s to report on what was happening in the country at that time. The book uses the shop as a prism to all that has happened in Alegria in the 20th century.

But you will follow the alleys that lie open to the sun, won’t you?You’ll come at last to Rue Hamani, formerly known as Rue Charras.You’ll look for b: it won’t be easy, because some of the numbers have disappeared. You’ll stand there facing a sign in a window: One who reads is worth two who don’t. Facing History, with a capital H, which changed this world utterly, but also the small-h history of a man, Edmond Charlot, who, in 1936, at the age of twenty-one, opened a lending library called Les Vraies Richesses.

In the present its ghost lives on in the library on the same site.

The book drifts from the present, where the shop’s site is now a lending library, so the spirit it had is still living in a way. Then back in time to the glory years of this shop that was opened by Edmond Charlot a free thinker if there ever was one, he imagined Les Varies Richesses as a melting pot of literature, art and friendship a meeting place for those in love with books, not only did he open a shop he also published books from that shop as well. It had been where Camus first saw fame with his first book launched at the shop. It was also used in the war to publish FREE French propaganda. A book is in a number of forms, all different the present is in Alegeria with its problems and Post-independence as we see Ryad clearing the book to sell but is the shop just a shop? What is it soul? We have Charlot’s own journal that sees how he got books out there from Camus and Giono, how the shop managed to just get through the war, and then in the years after the war, we see how Alegeria is moving towards independence so many countries started to after world war two.

May 5, 1936

This will be a library, a bookstore, a publishing house, but above all a place for friends who love the litterature of the Mediterranean. As soon as I took possession, I was overjoyed. I’m starting to meet the neighbors, the storekeepers, the waiters. These new characters in nmy new world. REVOLT IN asturias is on sale. People are saying that e.c stads for EDITIONS camus. They’ll see through the ruse soon enough, but we’re in no hurry to set the record straight, the main thing is, the play is Selling

Camus the man he first publuished and a man thart would sit outside the shop and smoke from timt to time.

This book is clever as its main character is the shop but not the shop. More of the dream of what the shop could be, a place for ideas. The shop and its history is a lens on the country around it as history happened to like those involved in the wars of the period took damage, so did the shop. But its spirit is still there in some way. I loved the parts of Charlot’s journal that harks back to an era when dreamers and free thinkers could have almost changed the world when a bookshop can be so much more a publisher, a melting pot of ideas, a place for thinkers to chat and talk over the world this is a book that reminds you of the power books can have and the freedom even in the present there is the chance to get a book and break free in those words of your present. This is one of those odd books that walks the line between fact and fiction and leads us to a small shop and a man with dreams and one of the greatest writers in the 20th century in Camus, that loved the shop. Have you read this book?

Winston’s score = +B, A tale of a long-gone shop and a place I would have enjoyed, I think !!

 

Riambel by Priya Hein

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Riambel by Priya Hein

Mauritian fiction

Source – Personal copy

The times now I buy a new book that isn’t translated because I have heard about it on social media is slim really. But this book I saw mentioned on Youtube, and after I got it, a few other people mentioned it, I love a slow word-of-mouth book, and this is what I think it is from Indigo Press, a new name to me. Apart from the word of mouth when I saw on the cover, it had a blurb from LE Clézio and her fellow Mauritian writer Anada Devi a writer whose book I loved when I read it because, like this book, it seemed to capture a significant slice of this tropical island but not the lovely beaches from those on the edge of the beauty getting by. Priya Hein had written a number of children’s books and short stories before this her debut novel. She has also won a number of awards, and she now splits her time between Mauritius and Germany.

We live in a cite,or Kon krool( which is how we like to refer to our shanty town). It’s also known as Africa Town – a slum where the poor and the undesirables are dumped together in hastily constructed barracks. Like tins of sardines placed next to each other in a higgledy-piggledy way. Whatever’s found in the trash somehow ends up in our cité, which is nothing but the waste of Riambel discarded in a heap that slowly rots away. A trash-strewn ghetto where everything is starving and fighting to survive – even the dogs.

Her home a shanty called Riambel everything is hard there.

The book is formed around the story of a young girl. She has to finish her school life and join other family members in the big house of The De Grandbourg family. They live in the Riambel, the slum of the city. Noemi is faced with no choice around this change. Still, we see the world through her eyes, those rich people on the other side of the road in the world, but it also mixes the history of the island but with a female twist to that and also has a beautiful idea of using recipes local to the island as well those sort of recipes passed on mother to daughter even the way they were written I had a sense of a card box like my mum had with those precious recipes passed down through the years. But as you read them, there is a sense of how the Western world has crept in on these island recipes over the years as they have been rewritten or verbally passed on. The book is also intersected with poetry from the island that evokes the spirit of the island and its struggles. As we see a young girl wrestling with a life of servitude and recounting how little can change, there is a glimpse of hope. A woman that came on a holiday and stayed seems interested in her. This shows the tension simmering under the island, an island with affluent ex french families still owning land and running things.

Make sure that your prawns are fresh by checking they colour. They should look transparent and smell of the sea Give them a quick rinse in cold water. Pull off their head, tails and legs before removing the shells and the black veins, Once this is done, rinse the prawns again under cold water.Using a ros kari or a stone mortar, crush some garlic cloves together with a small finger of fresh ginger. Pour a little oil in a pan and fry the paste over a medium fire. Add one chopped onion and continue to fry until golden. Throw in your prawns and cook for a couple of minutes. Add one or two chopped tomatoes and one sliced chilli and stir.Throw in some masala and a few curry leaves. Don’t make it too spicy for the whites, otherwise they’ll complain about their delicate stomachs. Stir well until it thickens. Add a little sea salt, but not too much, as the prawns are already salty. Pour in a dash of water if needed. Sprinkle with fresh coriander and serve with pickled vegtables – enn ti zasar legin – and freshly cooked rice

one of the recipes her for a prawn curry I liked the sound of this one.

I think I am amazed by the book as it is a debut novel. It is so well crafted. I love the ways she weaves Noemi’s voice, the island’s poets, and the island’s recipes. It is a personal history of an island, whereas Noemi says the history they learn isn’t there’s. It has the simmering below the surface of a Mauritius, something you felt in Devi’s novel, a sense of a powder keg that never entirely blows. A sense of things not changing. This is an island out of time with other places. Slavery is gone but only in name, and this shows how little hope there is in a slum-like Riambel, no matter how Noemi sees it as having a double meaning. And it is really Rive en belle Beautiful Shore (I love this thought. It captures her as a girl of a certain age). I also loved the usage of the recipes as a way of talking about the island with food as a way of showing changing tastes and how Western ideas drifted in. I hope this has been seen by someone near the Booker. It reminds me of the gems you used to find years ago on the Booker lists. Have you read this book?

Winstons score – ++++++A best book of the year so far !!

Ada’s Realm by Sharon Doudua Otoo

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Ada’s Realm by Sharon Dodua Otoo

German fiction

Original title – Ada’s Raun

Translator – Jon Cho-Polizzi

Source – Review copy

I am a fan of writers that have a story in the bio, and Sharon seems to be one of those writers. Born in London to Ghanaian parents in London she, like I did decided she would live in  Germany, unlike me who returned after a couple of years she stayed on and made her home in Berlin. She has been a poet and writer all that time initially, her first two novellas were published in English, and then she chose to start writing in German, so her first novel is in her new language. She had already won one of the biggest German literature prizes for a short story she had written. This book covers centuries and uses a number of women sharing the same first name over those years.

Totope, March 1459

During the longest night of the year, blood clung to my forehead and my baby died. Finally. He had whimpered in his final moments, and Naa Lamiley had caressed his cheek. How lovely, I had thought, that this would be his final memory. She lay just beside him, the child between us, and her head resting next to mine. Naa Lamiley’s eyes shimmered as she assured me it would not be much longer now, “God willing”. She whispered because all of our mothers were sleeping on the other side of the room, but Naa Lamiley’s voice would have given out at any moment anyway. Together, we had cried and prayed at my baby’s side the last three nights. I could barely hear her, and 1 understood her even less.

The book oopens with Ada losing another baby in Birth!

From the first Ada is in africa when we meet her she has lost a child and is geiving in 15th century Ghana as she loses anpother child just after birth . This is a book about shared sorrow and can you hold the past of someone with the same name it is a richly weaved novel that sees uis next in Victorian London and Ada Lovelace (Stranger this is the second novel this year she has cropped up in as a character in Thread Ripper) with nan imagined relationship; with Dickens then we are in another Ada a Polish woman now but is it the same soul and she is trying to get by in a Nazi death camp.what would this Ada do to get by !! the story seems to circle in on itself and we have a Ghanian Ada in modern day Berlin on the hunt for a roof over her head. The four womans stories twist and turn through out the book so we have a book like a escher painting as we go across the centuries and coninents to see each ada in there time and how it has a ripple effect on each other!

Lizzie had looked away because she was not quite sure of the answer herself. She had no idea that I was calling her. In the end, she attributed her disturbance to the fact that – despite it all – she still worried about her mistress.

Should Mr Dickens yet be present when Lord King arrived, Lizzie could not imagine that Lady Ada would get out of the ensuing confrontation unscathed.

In victorian London Ada Lovelace and DIckens meet ?

This is a wonderfully playful book with narrative and linear structure as it breaks them up as I say iot is like an Escher painting as no matter what time it is the woman seem to be in the same holwe and have the saeme issues of sex, race and postion in the world . WHat is even more impressive such a cimpolex beast has been brought out by a writer in a second languane . But part of me wonders does it work better like that written in German for Sharon as a writer. Just imagine for a moment if Toni  morrison and WG sebald had a bastard child this would be the book she would write.No doubt as  it mixes thoughts about  places and race history and also how it cvan sometimes coil on itself remember Sebalds books twisted one way and then another and Morrison alway showed how important race can be in peoples lifes. so what we have is an epic book with four woman at its heart. Showinfg even thou time has moved that one soul maybe can repeat the same things loss of a child, love, Just serving via sex and then having a home those basic human needs and rights through the ages. Have you read any of Sharons books? Or any writers that have written books in two languages ?

WEinstons score – + A – This is a writer to watch a strong voice and not afraid to take risks with her writing and brings them of in stunning style !!

The return of Stu’s Favourite Podcasts

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It seemed a while since I had done a post around the bookish and a couple non-books podcasts I have been listening to in the last while I did a post many years ago, but some of the podcasts have gone others had evolved over the years. SO lets get into it

First is The Mookse and Gripes. Trevor as a blogger has been as around as long as I can remember being on the net which is about the time I started this blog. He has done the podcast for a number of years firstly with his brother and now with Paul. This version for me really works there is an excellent connection as they chat over books it is a mix of deep dives into writers and publishers and a list of books around a set topic. Of course, it has a lot of books in Translation mentioned.

Next up is tea or Books. Simon and Rachel have long been a favourite for me. I love their chat I love the fact they discuss books, so out of my sphere of reading it reminds me of what is out there; the show is split into a discussion around a question around books do you like books set in a bookshop or such. Then the second part is two books that share a theme or trait and which they like best.

Next up a really new shiny podcast, Lost in Redonda is a new podcast it is also split into two parts. The first discusses a backlist title the second half is a journey into the world of The King of Redonda, Javier Marias. He is a writer. I have read but have always felt that over people love him I am hoping well it has so far it has made me want to take a deep dive into Marias at some point and discover this writer more than know already.

Next up is Frances One Bright book podcast she has been involved with the Shadow Booker international since the start. Her podcast is a discussion around a single book that they all read it is great to see how different readers that broadly have similar tastes react to the books they read.

Next is another Newish podcast. The pair are young and host this unlike the other podcasts where I have known or known the people connected to the podcast This is a podcast dedicated to NYRB classics they are going to read all the books from them (I bet Trevor from Mookse is kicking himself he has long championed them )

Then we have Biulaq a podcast focused on Arabic Literature featuring the people behind the Arablit Blog and the Arabist blog. This has given me so many books in the last year or so even in this week’s episode I had read two of the three books I will be reading the other book they mention if you want to learn about Arabic fiction in translation.

Then we have the Anthony Burgess podcast that is working through his 99 novels and also has shown around him as a writer as you may know I have a huge soft spot for him and I am enjoying the trip through the 99 best books he had chosen as the best in English.

A little different a writer podcast the poet Sally Bayley talks about writing, poetry and life on her narrowboat a mix of her life poetry and nature a sweet podcast.

Mentions for Book podcast

Backlisted -a mine of great backlisted titles

Reading McCarthy – all about Cormac McCarthy and his boooks

Vollmania – All around William T Vollman

Chatting lit I’m very new to this but seems interesting so far

Then we have

99% INVISIBLE

This design podcast has been going years it looks at design and how we often miss it one of my favourite ones was about Thomassons those piece of street furnture maintain but totally useless now this came from American Baseball payer that was useless when he played in Japan this lead to people using his name for pictures of these unused piece of street furniture.

Have you a favourite podcast ?

 

Stu’s February Journey

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  1. A woman’s battle and Transformations by Edouard Louis
  2. Mothers don’t by katixa Agirre 
  3. The Queens of Sarmiento Park by Camila Sosa Villada
  4. Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart
  5. The leash and the Ball by Rodaan Al Galidi
  6. A mountain to the North by Laszlo Krasznahorkai 
  7. Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

My voyage of reading the world this month called at France again and another book from Edouard Louis that leaves me just one of his books to read. Then we cross over to the Basque region and a story of two women, one a reporter, the other has killed her twins years earlier; their paths crossed when they were both at university. Then we head to Argentina and a group of sex workers that hang around Srmieto park and their collective ups and downs. Then I had one of my changes of tack and a book about Gardening from Persephone books a gem of a book. Then one of the recurring themes this year is migration and being a refugee with the tall of a man trying to settle down in the Netherlands. Then I have two books from Eastern Europe, firstly from Hungarian Master Laszlo Krasznahorkai with a meditative book about a temple, and the grandson of Genji takes us through time and what makes the spirit of a place. Then we move to Bulgaria and a look at how we view the past with an assistant collecting the past for a therapist to supply his therapy of reliving the past for dementia and then everyone questions what is the past and is it healthy to live in it.

Book of the month

I loved the sense of the dual world in this book. Two women who once knew one another is drawn back when one commits a hideous act of infanticide. Of her twins, the other tries to uncover what happened but never really gets there.

Non- book events

Well, we are busy getting ready for a move, hopefully, next month, so we had a lot of paperwork and such this month to deal with which has consumed time. I also have to cull a lot of books as I have to lose a couple of bookcases in the new house, but I had dreaded this, but it feels pretty cleansing. I buy lots of books and maybe know in my heart of hearts a number I will never get to so this is like a snake shedding a skin Plus room for those unbrought books I have to buy or get sent. I have watched a few episodes of Taggert that had been put on Britbox as they weren’t available elsewhere.  I have discovered a few new book tubers to watch. Apart from that, it was a quiet February. We got a lot of new pieces yesterday at Ikea for the new house, the essentials such as light shades etc.

Next Month

It is Booker International month, with the longlist coming out in the middle of it. I had opted to miss the shadow jury, but when it came down to it, I decided to rejoin them; it has been an institution for the last 11 years I just couldn’t miss it I have tried the last week or two to read some books that may be on the list I have two big ones night of plague and our share of night two that could make the list both of which I am part way through to review before the list comes out. I  may miss the end of the month with the move happening probably a week before the end of the month. I think I may be offline for a week to ten days but

Those Holiday books and a few gifts

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I promised you a tour of the books and I will also show you a couple of gifts I got or Amanda gifted me.

First is the three books I brought at the accidental bookshop the new well think it has been there a year or so in Alnwick. Firstly was a book I was on the hunt for which I had seemed mentioned on Twitter a couple of times over the few days before we went away. It follows the time the art historian Felix Hartlaub his notebooks of when he was assigned to war time Paris. I have read this and am going to reread it next week for a review.

Then I choose this I have only read the first part of Tove Dilevsen Copenhagen trilogy that is enough to know I would love anything by her another of these writers in the last few years we have rediscovered or have just reached us in English this is a collection of her short stories.

The last book I brought was this I always like to buy just three books per book shop do you have a quota per shop? I saw a few titles that I Like on their shelves but I finally went for this book by Alejandro Zambra another writer I have read before and have reviewed three books by him this had been on my list of books to read a poet wanders around a city of poets and then meets up with his childhood sweetheart who now has a child !!!. I may save this for next year’s Spanish lit month.

Then in North Berwick, I had a look around Oxfam (Am I the only one that always thinks in the Charity shop world Oxfam always seems to have the best books in them ?) it was a small shop busy but I managed to find three books again the first is this Turkish writer Yashar Kemal he was best known for Memed, My Hawk which I have somewhere and yet to get to but I have a number of Turkish books on my shelves which I am yet to get too so I have a project in mind around those books which include the new Orhan Pamuk.

Then another old Harvil this book is described as a fast-paced gripping greek tragedy set in a small French village by an Italian writer that is one that seems to tick all the boxes I like as a reader and it feels like a Christopher Maclehose book (from his time at Harvil )

 

Then a third book to read from last years Nobel winner I have yet to read Gurney but when he won everyone seemed to be reading him so I ll wait to get to this next year. It was also a reminder that this years Nobel is just around the corner and we will all see who wins this year.

I am a keyring fan and I brought this small Concorde model the bigger models were either to much or just to basic so I picked this and hope one day there may be a nice large model I can fin or maybe a lego model at some point.

I was torn between this and a print for the Concorde this is for my new library when I move I got this just because not had such a connection to my childhood of seeing this plane, in fact, looking like this passing overhead as I was a small child.

The last gift was one Amanda brought me is a new mug which I loved I am a fan of funky mugs and this is one and as Amanda says I am always telling the tale of when I took someone away many years ago and we visited the Coldstream guard’s museum (which wasn’t that far from where we stayed) they had let the person we had taken away try on a bearskin they had so yet again a connection to memories. But isn’t that what life is as we move forward we also have glimpses and flickers of past times every day. A little haul from a long weekend away.

 

 

That was the month that was January 2021

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  1. The Catholic school by Edoardo Albinati
  2. At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
  3. A luminous Republic by Andres Barba
  4. Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura
  5. Robinson by Aram Pachyan
  6. Holiday Heart by Margarita Garcia Robayo
  7. Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai
  8. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
  9. Kokoschka doll by Alfonso Cruz
  10. The last days of Ellis Island by  Gaëlle Joss
  11. 30th April 1945 by Alexander Kluge
  12. The sand child by Tahar Ben Jelloun
  13. With an unopened umbrella in the pouring rain by Ludovic Bruckstein

Well, I managed 13 reviews this month, and from 12 countries unfortunately there were no new countries,  no new publishers, but it’s been a while since I reviewed a book from Virago. The journey this month starts with the epic Italian story of a school and some killing then we went to the trenches and some African troops. A small child tells the tales of his medieval Japanese fishing village.  Then some strange children appear in the jungle. Then Modern Armenia is highlighted in a collection of short stories. Then we had the tale of a couple’s American dream falling apart. A day in the life of a pre-war Japan. Then the letters between a New Yorker and an old English bookseller. A series of vignettes take us to wartime Germany and the aftermath. The last week on Ellis Island sees the last guard reflecting on his time on the Island. The day Hitler shot himself is seen in 360 degrees from every angle. Then a girl is forced to grow up a boy to save the family money and lastly we see Sighet in Romania with tales of the Jews that lived there.

Book of the month

We have two winners here –

Firstly the tales of Sighet so touch me in this collection of short stories from a writer that has luckily been saved from oblivion and brought to us thanks to his son’s efforts to get his father’s voice heard.

Then 30th April 1945 is just so rich the multiple layer Kluge forms with his vignettes around the day Hitler shot himself. Kluge is a writer that likes to take a wide angle on his fiction the bigger picture.

Non-book related items

With us in Lockdown I haven’t brought a lot of records this month but spent most time listen back to old Uncut and Mojo cd I have got both these magazines for well twenty years so I have a lot of their CDs and have spent a couple of hours reading and listening to them most afternoons off work. Especially their Americana CDs. I am now on the last of my three nights tonight for this month at work.

Next month

I have already read a couple of books read ready so we shall be in Iceland and with a chess master to start with this month’s reading I hope to add a couple of Arab works this month. Then I will see where I wander knowing me it has been a while since I read a book from a new country so I think that may need to add somewhere new next month what are your plans for the coming month?

That was the month that was Feb 2020

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  1. Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini
  2. The siege of Troy by Theodor Kallifatides
  3. The Happening by Annie Ernaux
  4. A perfect Hoax by Italo Svevo
  5. The Salt of the Earth by Jozef Wittlin
  6. The roar of Morning by Tip Marugg
  7. The Fallen by Carlos Manuel Álvarez
  8. This Tilting World by Collette Fellous

This month I read 8 books to take the total to 16 for the year. I read books from 6 countries. One new country Curacao with the book the roar of the morning there was no new publishers but I started in the Italian Alps with a hermit a long-dead foot and a talking dog. Then a greek island during world war two and a teacher retelling a greek classic tho her pupils. Then a woman remembering the horror of a backstreet abortion. A writer is lead astray by a con man and a simple man goes to war but really would rather be on the trains. As a man contemplates his life in those wee hours of the morning when the world is silent and the mind wanders. The matriarch of a family starts having falls the family gets m,ore fragile and cracks appear. Then a lost world of Jews in Tunisia.

Book of the month

Its been a tough month as there wasn’t a weak read but this book had a great flow to it and there was a real sense of a man weighing up his life at the Roar of the morning when the day comes he has drinks in his hands as he looks back on the major events of his life.

Non- book events

Amanda and I are doing a charity swim for the next few weeks. we are trying to do 22 miles the distance of the channel. we are one week in and over 2 miles swam. I also have been listening to Gregg Dulli from the Afghan Whigs solo debut album.

Next month

I am on the three of the books from the Booker longlist. Which has seen me read about two people with the same name in the same town? A man trying to write about his past. Then a ghost talks about her family move to a small village. I have just finished Three night this morning so will be posting reviews I  have eight books left to read which I think will take up this month although I have a couple of other books I need read.

 

Some recent arrivals and xmas gifts

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Well, here we have the fist of a few new arrivals. I haven’t read lullaby yet but when I saw this copy of Adele the follow-up book to come out in English was unread in the local Oxfam and I haven’t read the Raymond Carver collection which was the first collection that came out by him as a writer. He was the master of the short story.

Then I have a gift from my darling wife the second Murakami diary to come out it is a hardback whereas the first one that came out a few years ago was a smaller pocket type diary it has all the publication dates of Murakami’s works, Cycle of the moon, and Japanese holiday. She also got me the recent Gregor Von Rezzori novel to be published, Abel and Cain. An episodic work that covers the post-world war years through the second world war to the sixties. I have had my eye on a while so when Amanda got it me for Christmas I was really happy it will be one for German lit month this year,

Then another find in the flea market a copy of Boswell’s London Journals. where discovered for the first time in 1920 and published in 1950. where among the earliest of his writing to be published. I have been a fan of his writing for a while since I was young and hadn’t read this but had his life of Johnson years ago so I have been buying a few other works he wrote and this is the latest to the collection of his works.

Last, is Tyll by Daniel Kelhlmann Who I thought I reviewed but turns out I didn’t I did read F by him but think I was in such a rush with the iffp reading when it was longlist that year as I struggled to get the books it missed a review anyway this is meant to be his best book and use a fable-like quality to tell a story that is historic but with echoes of the modern world?

 

 

September 2019 that was the month

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  1. Welcome to America by Linda Bostorm Knaugard
  2. Years like Brief days by Fabian Dobles
  3. 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by Elif Shafak
  4. Milena, Milena,Ecstatic by Bae Suah
  5. The Marquise of O by Heinrich Von Kleist
  6. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
  7. Quichotte by Salman Rushdie

Book of the month

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time, I have picked a none translated book as my book of the month but this is one of those rare books that is undefinable it is a monster of a read but the rhythm in those lists where she jumps from here to there in them. My reading journey this month saw me head from a chaotic family in America through Costa Rican village, then a dead prostitute in Istanbul relives her life in the last ten mins of her life. Then a Korean filmmaker meets a strange woman. Then a german classic in a new translation as a marquise tries to find the father of her child. Then I finished it off with a Reworking of Don Quixote by Salman Rushdie. I am still behind on the books read this year on 68 books reviewed want to get to 100 this year I will need to pull my socks up a bit but with german lit month soon I feel I can get there hopefully.

Next month

I have a number of novellas to read from around Europe I can’t see me reading the other booker titles they are just too long especially as I have a 900 pages modern german masterpiece and an even longer Italian novel to read before the end of the year.

Non-book events

I had some time off work and visited the Holocaust museum in Nottinghamshire it is very small but touching it has two exhibits one is about the Holocaust and the other follows one ten-year-old boy’s journey through the Kindertransport in recreations of his home school the boat that brought him here. We also went to see Major Oak the 1200-year-old Oak tree that is in Sherwood forest held up it is huge tree. In my nostalgia tv corner, I have been watching the father Downing mysteries which featured Tom Bosley is best known for playing  The father on Happy days he was also a sheriff in Murder she wrote this series sees him as a vicar investigating crime a fan of Sherlock Holmes with his sidekick a streetwise Nun.

 

That was the month that was April 2018

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  1. One clear ice-cold January morning at the beginning of the twenty-first century by Roland Schimmelpfennig
  2. Love by Hanne Ørstavik
  3. Death in Spring by Merce Rodoreda
  4. The end of a family story by Peter Nadas
  5. Maigret’s secret by Georges Simenon
  6. The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz
  7. After the winter by Guadalupe Nettel
  8. Not to read by Alejandro Zambra
  9. The day before happiness by Erri De Luca
  10. The little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg

Well it is a third of the year gone and I have reviewed 34 books on the blog.well I managed to review ten books last mknth which as I went on hliday for eight days was a good showing I feel. Books from nine countries, no new publishers . I revisitedfive writers and managed to squeeze two more Italian writers for the first Italian lit month. Next year I will be more on the ball thanks for those who took part great thanks we will do it all again next year. We also got to spend time in Torquay for the first time since we had our Honeymoon there eleven years ago. It was nice to see the place we started our marriage time has flown and we still together.

Book of the month

 

Not to read, I have been a fanof Zambra since I read his debut novel Bonsai a number of years ago, I have featured two of his books on the blog. So when this came along I couldn’t resist it. The collection of Essays follows Zambra’s reading life and what writers have touched him over the years. This is one of those books that leads to a whole range of new books. In fact before the end of the month. I featured one book connect to the books Zambra had read. Natalia Ginzburg.

Discovery of the month

I am niot a huge fan of huge hollywood blockbusters but Amanda and I sat the other night and watch The Blind side which came out a number of years ago. It was the story of an American Football player Big Mike . How he came from being on the streets to being taken in by a family and getting through school to get to college . A heartwarming film about what makes us all human.