My mother began losing her memory and acting strangely two years after a serious road accident from which she had fully recovered - she had been knocked down by a car that had run a red light. For several months, she was able to continue living on her own in the old people's residence of … Continue reading I Remain in Darkness | Annie Ernaux tr. Tanya Leslie
It will be necessary to say first how this story and how this trip started, and what its intention was. In late March, I, and the pronoun is used by special arrangement with John Gunther, was sitting in the bar of the Bedford Hotel on East Fortieth Street. A play I had written four times … Continue reading A Russian Journal | John Steinbeck & Robert Capa
The newspaper had slipped from his hands, first unfolding in his lap and then sliding slowly onto the polished-wood floor. He looked as if he had dozed off, except that every now and again a thin slit was visible between his eyelids. The Cat is a 1967 story by Georges Simenon about Émile and Marguerite … Continue reading The Cat | Georges Simenon, tr. Ros Schwartz
I'm a few weeks late with this announcement, but ever since my year of Reading Orwell I have been very interested in the shortlist for the particular prize. The prize has been going since 1994 and now includes six separate prizes. The Orwell Prize for Political Writing The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction The Orwell … Continue reading The Orwell Prizes 2026
It was a warm midsummer evening in the city of London in the year 1836. Caroline hears her father whistle outside the house in Chelsea where she is employed. She lays down the book she is reading and, wrapping a light shawl about her, she takes the stairs up to the street. He is standing … Continue reading A Great Act of Love | Heather Rose
Schrödinger's Cat by GhostyGRM on DeviantArt As things appear to be coming to some sort of climax I have withdrawn to this place. It is cooler here, and nothing moves fast. When I was looking for a short story to add to my Reading the Meow schedule this year, Ursula Le Guin's story kept popping … Continue reading Schrödinger’s Cat | Ursula Le Guin #shortstory
My mother died on Monday 7 April in the old people's home attached to the hospital at Pontoise, where I had installed her two years previously. The nurse said over the phone: 'Your mother passed away this morning, after breakfast.' It was around ten o'clock. Every time I read another book by Annie Ernaux I … Continue reading A Woman’s Story | Annie Ernaux, tr. Tanya Leslie
They look like torches. The lights on the horizon seem to spring from the ground, spread across the blackness and rush past her. It's as if children, hand in hand, running at an impossible speed, are holding them out to light their way. Every time I see the cover for Sean Wilson’s You Must Remember … Continue reading You Must Remember This | Sean Wilson
On the weekend I had a pilgrimage to one of the childhood homes of Australian writer, Christina Stead (17th July 1902 - 31st March 1983). Lydham Hall Historic House and Museum can be found at 18 Lydham Avenue, Rockdale. Rockdale is now part of the much larger Bayside Council area that brings together about 30 suburbs … Continue reading Christina Stead, a literary pilgrimage
To date I have only read one Stefan Zweig book, Fear, which was in actual fact a novella. So I had to look up The Post-Office Girl to learn a little more about it to find my first link. The temptation to go with an epistolary novel was VERY strong, but I resisted and focused … Continue reading Six Degrees of Separation
There are those who claim that their life was saved by a book. I don't know anyone who has claimed this, but I am aware of the sentiment. It is part of the collective memory of books. A book comes into the world knowing it is a saviour, of sorts. This really shouldn’t work, but … Continue reading Phantom Days | Angela O’Keeffe
Scorching salt sprinkled onto a healing wound–that’s how the wedding of his young neighbour felt to Petko. A vital, necessary thing. No grief, however intense, should stop the flow of life, just as a boulder thrown into a river would not turn its current. The water would move around it and keep flowing, as was … Continue reading White Moss | Anna Nerkagi, tr. Irina Sadovina
© Brona’s Books 2026 | My at home work space This month I'm sharing a view of my main blogging space. When we moved to the mountains (two years ago this month) we turned one of the spare bedrooms into a shared work from home space and I sometimes will sit there and blog. But Mr Books … Continue reading Book Diary | May 2026
As many of you already know Australian writer David Malouf died on the 22nd April 2026, aged 92 (you can read Sue @Whispering Gums tribute here, Jonathan @Me Fail? I Fly here and Lisa @ANZ LitLovers here). To honour him I decided to pull out his collection of short stories, The Complete Stories, that has … Continue reading The Complete Stories | David Malouf
1979 Behzad King of kings they called him, and they said, We rejoice in him, we rejoice in his wife and her beauty; they said, We love this country, and then we said, We love this country. We had to rejoice in his newborn son, for longer than we ever would a birth in our own family, his newborn son, in … Continue reading The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran | Shida Bazyar, tr. Ruth Martin
