Tag: library books

My first library trip of 2023

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

I had a number of books tio return to the library a number I hadn’t got to so I decided to just pick novellas this time and hopefully I will be able to get to them they have such a great selection at our library, in fact, I think the last couple of years there selection of books in translation has grown which is handy for this blogger and for the readers of Derbyshire. so I will go through the books I have picked.

First up is Stella by Takis Würger this is a novel inspired by a haunting beauty called Stella (a real person) and a man that in the middle of world war two has come to Switzerland and is captivated by her.

Concerning my Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin is the tale of a daughter coming home in her 30s to live with her mother and the struggle with her mother’s view of how her life should be and her life. A Korean LGBT novel i love clashes of family old values against new values and ways we live so looking forward to this.

These are two novellas by the Dutch writer Gerald Reve he was a writer I had lonbg wanted to read but when I read the evenings I just don’t think that book and me connected I had read it twice and still hadn’t connect with it I had so wanted to love it. So maybe another book by him may work and I’ll go back for a third time to the evenings. I really want to like this writer.

I wanted another Japanese book to read and this Picnic in the storm by Yukiko Motoya sounds surreal collection of stories with the first about a female bodybuilder just sounded different to me.

I’ve heard a lot of Booktubers talk about reading Ferrante and I am reading days of abandonment at the moment and felt well this is short It may its time I try and read the rest of her books.I m late to the party but i got there in the end for Ferrante.

A middle-aged man on a trip to Montevideo falls for a woman he sees whilst out on a day tribe in the city just looked like it could be a fresh take on an aged old story of a older guy and younger woman.

Then is those chance books I saw this was from Dalkey archive and strangely is due out in a Faber edition next week I knew I had seen the name around it is from the 30s and is partly based on the writer’s own experiences in a mental institution after giving birth and getting psychosis I’m interested to see how different we treat mental illness now to nearly a hundred years ago how have we moved on ?

I think I may have been sent this book I have reviewed two earlier books from the same writer the Maurtius writer Nathacha both are different from the each other I love writers that evolve over their books this is a tale of a sister who steals her mother car to go and find her sister that has disappeared that grabbed me as a reader.

I loved a lot of the books Verso has brought out the last few years this won the Gioncourt prize for a debut novel and is based on an actual events and looks at France’s colonial past.

I’ve been trying to read Balzac for years in fact Balzac and Zola are on my list of writers to read more of so I thought this slim book may kickstart my journey with him. I have a couple of his longer books to read. I need to jump in and get him and Zola on my list of french writers I have read before it hits 200 books from France I have reviewed which isn’t so far off 60 books I think it may be a couple of years til I get there but no more.

Have you been to the library recently ?

Stu’s library loot

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

I returned the two books I had read from the library and I had a look on the online catalogue at what may be on the Booker longlist that I didn’t own and was on the shelves at my local branch which is the main one in town I found two books and then when I was there three other books grabbed my eye. Anyway let’s go through my loot this time I may get to these I may not but I am getting better at renewing books I must have funded a couple of booker list worth of books over the years in fines but with my productivity drive for 2022 in full swing, I need something at the moment as a sidetrack and books are that a way to release some stress.

First up is a book the first in a trilogy from the Finnish writer Antti Tuomainen his first series and had been brought to be made into a film from Amazon it follows the life of a straight-laced Henri Koskinen his job as a mathematician is calculated insurance and this seems to go over to his own life so when life throws him a curveball of ending up losing his job and when his brother dies he gets an adventure park which he meets Laura and finds love and this is something he can’t work out.I must admit I was in love with the cover of this a while ago as Karen from the publisher had retweeted it and its reviews a lot when it came out.

This was one of the two books I went for as I had seen it on a list another blogger had done of potential booker longlist books and it is one I had seen when it came out just the cover I remember seeing it around Twitter. The book follows a woman that sees an Okapi in her dreams as a foretelling of a death in the village she lives in as you all know I am a sucker for books set in villages as they tend to be their own micro-world alongside life and death.I also want to find some new german writers to read in the future the ones I love have all died and I do have a couple I like still as I said yesterday I read more french fiction than I do German fiction.

I had the first book from him sent to me and never got to it and then also like the sound of his second book this is the problem with me sometimes as a reader I am a magpie I like the next sparkly thing and what happens when you are in the middle of an affair and that moment happens when you reach the point of trust and open up and unload secrets to the other person and then a few days later you split. This is what has happened to Pietro and now Teresa knows something about his past I may finally read a book by him. Starnone may be Ferrante’s husband his wife is one of the names near the top of the list of writers who could be Elena Ferrante.

Then I happened to just see this near the Leky on the shelf it was one of the European writer series that penguin had been bringing out the last few years I had reviewed a couple of the titles. I knew this was a book I will be reading as I can finish it in an afternoon it follows an old woman that wakes one day finds an old fox fur scarf and this seems to spur her into a new playful invented word it all sounds a bit odd and maybe captures those moments when we haven’t a lot and make the best and invent the world around us. Have anyone read any others in the series they could point me too ?

I had been avoiding knausgaard after getting through all six of the My struggle series it isn’t that I don’t like him as a writer it is the opposite I actually enjoy his writing. I just wanted a break but when I read up on this that follows a group of nine different characters in two towns as a huge star appears in the sky but as is usual with him it is all in the detail of those lives he looks into. I had brought one of his season’s books that he brought out after my struggle series. I am intending to get all four before reading them so I will probably read this as I am now wanting to know more and I hope it is on the booker which is a bonus if it does as it is a 600-page novel. Has anyone read this book ?

Any other booker tips welcome and what have you brought back from any recent trips to the Library ?

Winston’s Library raid

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I fetched a few books from the library yesterday. Her they are first off an epic I had to pick up off the shelf as it was a former IFFP winner Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen is Ponders dark matter studies and world war tow with one of those wandering epics I hope to get it read but just amazed to find a Dalkey archive at the local library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is another favourite writer Emmanuel Carrere has been on the blog before and I was grabbed by this as it uses the story of luke to mirror the writers own life in a way, he is such a clever writer Carrere he could pull this off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One other thing I do want to do this year is adding a few more books from Africa and Cassava republic have published this Nigerian novel that is a coming of age tale in Northern Nigeria against a backdrop of extreme religion and politics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another great writer and one I have reviewed four times before on the blog Manuel Rivas. Jonathan Dunne his translator has his own site on the origins of words which is worth reading Stones of Ithaca  .He has also published the other Rivas books small station books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Bassani has been on my list for a while so pleased to get a copy at the library doctors secret gay life in 1930’s Italy is brought into the open and a touch of antisemitism into the mix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A French classic reminds me that I have the French art of war to finish this book focus on one period also covers in that book the `1958 French Algerian conflict.

What have you got from the library recently?

 

Winston’s covers how to read a Novelist

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

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Another day another library book arrives I sometimes get carried away on the library catalogue system.but this is one for me plan to pimp up the reviews for the blog add a bit of blind as this blog slowly clock up it 600th review two to go. I feel need to learn a little bit about reviewing not enough to lose my own voice but enough.to given my own voice a sound of the knowledge Base I have but sometimes struggle to convey in words. So this book is a collection a reviews interview and pieces about writers from John Freeman many years in the lit world.

The books I got the day I slipped

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

 

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Now I was actually in town on Saturday to take my books back to library and fetch some more which I just fetch out of the bag today maybe last library books for a couple months from town so what did I fetch starting with the Bolano after returning By night in Chile I couldn’t resist another so choose a short story collection .There is a couple of his stories I’ve listen to in the New Yorker fiction series and I really have enjoyed them so decide to try this collection .The book of fathers by Miklos Vamos caught my eye as it was a historic novel with folk tale and parable roll into an epic sounded great and I love a new writer to me .The anarchist banker is a collection of stories for Portugal which for me is the one country in Europe where the blog is very weak for its size . Then the third Valerio Varesi novel in the Commissaro Soneri series I have the second book on my shelves and reviewed the first a few years ago and want to catch up with this series .

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Also here today is White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen a tale of famine and a farmers wife that sets off for food in far north of Finland .Lucky four of these five books are quite slim so cam be held in one hand as I’m having to read and type this post on hand may just be book post not review for a week or so tile adjust to cast on arm and typing .
What books you had received or got recently ?