reviewing – findingtimetowrite

Annual Round-Up and Plans for 2024

It’s that time of year when, whether I like it or not, I get to review my reading, writing, film-watching (even my performance appraisal at work), which inevitably leads me to wonder if blogging, reading at great speed and reviewing are indeed the best use of my time. Every year I decide that no, probably not, I should spend more time on translating and writing, and every year I fail to do things differently. Or do I?

Blogging

Actually, my WordPress annual statistics show that I’ve written far fewer blog posts in 2023 (and therefore also less words) than at any time after 2013. There is a downward tendency for the number of likes and comments on my blog posts anyway, this has been the case for years after a peak in 2017 (and this is what my other blogger friends report too), so this is probably a wise use of my energy. I certainly don’t intend to post more frequently in 2024 and will only review the books that fit the ‘theme of the month’ (more about that anon). The majority of my blog visitors are from the US, followed at quite some distance by the UK. France and Canada are nearly on equal footing (very far behind those first two), and Germany and Australia are slightly behind them. I am curious what drove the single visitor from Vatican City (or Namibia or Turkmenistan) to my blog! The most popular blog post has been my sort of review of Lessons in Chemistry, which simply shows the popularity of that book rather than my qualities as a reviewer, although I’m pleased to see that my second most popular blog post hopefully encourages others to discover my favourite Japanese author Dazai Osamu. It also amuses me greatly to see that most people discover my blog thanks to Pinterest rather than Twitter or WordPress subscription or any other links: and my Friday Fun posts remain popular, although as usual they require minimal effort and are not necessarily all that representative of my interests (although yes, I suppose I am a little bit obsessed with interior design).

Writing and Translating

I’ve not written as much as I’d planned (not edited/rewritten my novel, not written a lot of new poetry or submitted anything much), I only submitted 24 things (including translations and residency applications) and I’ve very nearly had more rejections than submissions. The only two acceptances have been translations: of the fantastic (as in fantasy) short fiction by Urmuz in Turkoslavia magazine and of a short play by Edith Negulici in Asymptote Journal (forthcoming). A previous translation of Urmuz which appeared in Sublunary Edition’s Firmament Journal in early 2023 got a mention in the annual round-up by that publisher, which was a nice little boost. I’ve also had my translation of Deadly Autumn Harvest by Tony Mott published, of course, and it was great fun working on that (being a translator and editor all at once) and developing a really close relationship with the author, who was game for anything. I am also currently working on my first full-length translation of a German crime novel (page 282 of 430), which we hope to publish in January 2025.

Travelling

2023 has also been a year of travelling, ostensibly for DIY writing/translating retreats although not that much writing got done: to Switzerland in January, to Lyon and Provence at the end of March/beginning of April, to Gladstone’s Library in Wales in November. Add to that family holidays – our much postponed Japan trip in August, a wedding in Romania in late October – and an online Translation Summer School in July, and you can see that I’ve managed to keep myself thoroughly busy (or distracted, whichever way you choose to look at it).

Publishing

At least one third of all my time and effort has gone into my publishing venture, Corylus Books, this year (and every year since we started in 2020). Like all tiny independent publishers, particularly those of translated fiction which has substantial upfront costs and generally lower sales, we have found this year quite rough in terms of trading figures. People kept saying that Twitter didn’t sell books, but the scattered flight from that platform with no clear successor emerging shows that perhaps it was far handier in building a community and raising awareness about your books than we thought at the time. Of course, there are many other reasons (rising costs of paper, printing, distribution), the decline of reviewing off-line (and the decline in readership for online reviews), the opaque nature of gaining visibility among booksellers and festival organisers (the latter is even harder when you have authors who have to come from quite far abroad). I also have to resign myself to the fact that Romanian authors will always have a very niche appeal in the English-speaking world compared to Scandinavian ones. Anyway, I don’t mean to moan, but I’ve heard similar stories from other publishers and have compiled some of their thoughts into an article which will appear in 2024 in a special edition about books of the Romanian academic journal Culture. Society. Economy. Politics.

Reading Plans for 2024

I rather like having themed months, but only selecting a few books on that theme each month, so that still have some leeway for book club reading or anything else that might catch my fancy. So these are the months I already have themed:

January in Japan
French February (includes any French language, not just from France)
Moldovan and Romanian March (because there is no month that starts with R, and March contains both the letters M and R)
#1937Club in April – and possibly that will lead to a Classics or at least pre-WW2 reading all month
Spanish and Portuguese Lit Month in July
Women in Translation in August
German Lit Month and Novellas in November

Additionally, I would like to make it a habit to start and end the day with some poetry, to help me gain some perspective and regain some hope, despite all this horribly depressing news from around the world.

Writing, Translating and Publishing Plans

I will stop my day job in early March and will therefore need to start making money from translating, editing and writing, as well as the freelance training work I’ve done prior to 2017. I also have a house to sell in England and a flat to buy in Berlin, and organise an international relocation, so that should keep me deeply mired in administration, NOT my favourite thing to do. Nevertheless, although I might have to scale back my personal ambitions this year, I still need to have some creative outlets or goals.

I’m almost afraid of making any writing plans, because I failed to stick to them last year, but one thing I realised, after being part of the Write Club Plus programme in 2023 with The Literary Consultancy, is that my default option is being a multitasker when it comes to writing. I need the variety of working on multiple projects: poetry, flash fiction, non-fiction, novel, alongside translating. I have to accept that and learn how to work within that constraint (and finish things). So my only ‘resolution’ is to keep working at my writing and to not give up hope.

I will continue to pitch translation projects to various publishers and generally make them aware of authors they might be missing out on, although it has been a very disheartening and depressing process these past couple of years. My dream authors to bring into English would be Marlen Haushofer, Ödön von Horváth, Lavinia Braniște, Alina Nelega, Tatiana Țîbuleac and many more. I just wish that copyright holders (i.e. foreign publishers) were more responsive to my queries, and that the English-language publishers were not so good at ghosting.

Corylus will keep us busy in 2024 with five books being published, as well as the prep for the 2025 list. We have been keeping Quentin Bates busy as a translator with no fewer than three Icelandic authors. Óskar Guðmundsson is back with a very dark, haunting novella The Dancer. The irrepressible Stella Blómkvist will appear in a second investigative outing in May. Meanwhile, fans of Sólveig Pálsdóttir’s solid police procedurals will be glad to hear that a fourth translated book will be available in the summer. The two I’m most excited about, however, are the more overtly political books: our first author from Argentina Elsa Drucaroff with Rodolfo Walsh’s Last Case and Catalan author Teresa Solana, whom I’ve long admired, with the start of a new series set in Barcelona, Black Storms, touching upon the long-term consequences of the Spanish Civil War.

Making Up for a Lost Crime Festival #QDP2020

The Quais du Polar in Lyon was the highlight of my year back when I was living in France (and even afterwards). However, everything is different this year and of course it been cancelled, as have so many other excellent literary festivals. So Emma and I, who spent many a pleasant moment there together, have decided to post a crime fiction review on each day when the festival would have taken place – the 3rd, 4th and 5th of April 2020.

We aim to include either books by authors who would have been present at the current edition of the festival or else books that we bought – and got signed – at that festival (you may remember I splurged quite a lot back in those days).

It would be lovely if you decided to join us reading and reviewing crime fiction books by authors with links to Quais du Polar on those days. A virtual celebration of the wonderful city of Lyon, its rich cultural and gastronomic heritage. You can find a full list of authors (in English) who’ve attended the festival in the past on this page. And you can even listen to recordings of panels from previous years.

The Darling Buds of March – Reading Plans

I can’t wait for the tender shoots of March to nudge their way out of the snow – my reading buds are certainly coming along nicely and getting me very excited this month!

I have somehow found myself with a number of reading challenges – or opportunities (because I find them a great deal of fun), plus quite a few books to review. More than enough to keep me busy this month. In fact, I am somewhat envious of Bookish Beck’s formidable shelf organising skills and am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I may need a better TBR filing system than an overflowing armchair or night-table.

Asymptote Book Club:

Hanne Ørstavik: Love, transl. Martin Aitken

I read her first book to be translated into English The Blue Room published by Pereine, Love is the story of a single mother, Vibeke, and her son Jon, who have just moved to a remote small town in the north of Norway. It’s the day before Jon’s birthday, but with concerns of her own, Vibeke has forgotten this. With a man on her mind, she ventures to the local library while Jon goes out to sell lottery tickets for his sports club. As a newly single mother (albeit uninterested in new men), this one may hit me hard, but I’m prepared…

David Bowie Book Club

Spike Milligan: Puckoon

Very topical indeed – a comic novel about set in 1924, it details the troubles brought to the fictional Irish village of Puckoon by the Partition of Ireland. Because of government indecision and incompetence (wow, is that possible?) the new border passes directly through the middle of the village. I’ve managed to find a copy of this in the reserve fiction section (i.e. buried in the basement) of my local library and I hear there’s a film as well.

Muriel Spark #readingMuriel2018

I still have to review Symposium for Ali’s Reading Muriel initiative , but also planning to read The Comforters – her first novel but already showing a very unusual mind at work. The heroine, Caroline Rose, is plagued by a Typing Ghost and realises she is a character in a novel.

#EU27Project

Enough shilly-shallying with this one, I need to get cracking and have also got some non-fiction and poetry planned for a change.

Dubravka Ugresic: Europe in Sepia

Tangerine Sky: Poems from Malta

Dan Lungu: Sînt o babă comunistă! (I’m an Old Communist Biddy) – a Romanian satirical book, which has also been adapted for a play and a film, in which the author tackles all that inertia and nostalgia for everyday Communism which some of the older generation inexplicably have (or perhaps not that inexplicable after all)

For Review:

Stuart Turton: The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (71/2 in the US) – Golden crime meets the film Memento, in a complicated, brain-melting story about trying to prevent a murder and living with guilt.

Death Notice by Zhou Haohui – Chinese crime fiction written, unusually, by a contemporary thriller writer residing in China. Set in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province, this promises to be a gritty series, which has also been turned into a very popular TV crime drama.

Victor del Arbol: A Million Drops – an ambitious political thriller dissecting the heritage of Communism and Fascism in Spain, and how the past still impacts the present

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji, transl. Dennis Washburn – having a quick read through to compare and contrast different translations of one of my favourite books for an essay to appear in Asymptote

Still reading from February:

The Welsh book The Caves of Alienation by Stuart Evans

Tom Hanks: Uncommon Type – a short story collection, and although Hanks is actually quite good with words, the stories themselves are slight slices of life, tolerably amusing, but leaving me with a yawnish ‘so what?’ Probably will not finish or try again later.

January 2018 Reading Summary

It’s been a long month, which is reflected in quite a good month of reading. 17 books (18 if I count the book that I read in both French and English), although I have to admit many of them were very short, more like novellas. 10 of those were in translation or another language (representing 9 countries), of which 3 books were by the same author, Cesar Aira. (Bless those rabbit holes…). 7 by men, 10 by women. 1 short story collection, 2 non-fiction, 1 1/2 books of poetry (I’ll explain about the half later). 4 definitely crime fiction, another 2 somewhat crime fiction. I am delighted to see somewhat more variety in my reading.

Bit behind with my reviewing though…

Argentinean fiction

I started off with the first title in the Asymptote Book Club, Cesar Aira’s The Lime Tree. I enjoyed that so much, I promptly read another two by the author, The Literary Conference and An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter. Strange does not even begin to describe the themes and styles of this author: it’s a world away from the magical realism of Marquez which I was never that keen on. Another Argentinean writer with a surrealist metaphorical bent is Ricardo Romero: his novella The President’s Room brought back all sorts of memories of self-censorship, of everyone knowing but no one talking, of not feeling safe even in the bosom of the family.

Crime fiction

Gunnar Staalesen’s Wolves in the Dark tackled the difficult topic of child pornography and abuse, while Nadia Dalbuono’s The Extremist (review forthcoming on Shiny New Books) is a political thriller with a race against the clock hostage situation but also hints at how extremism is born and reborn in the Western world. Mary Anna Barbey’s Swiss Trafic was not cheery either, showing how immigrants are treated in Switzerland and the extent to which human trafficking is hidden in that affluent society. Kate Rhodes’ Hell Bay, meanwhile, is a more typical police procedural, set on a small island, thereby creating a closed room mystery set-up.

The additional two that might very loosely be classed as crime novels are Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (murders do happen, both in the past and in the present), and Die Stille der Gletscher (The Silence of the Glaciers) by Ulrike Schmitzer, an Austrian author who might be said to be popularising the science of climate change via a crime story and global conspiracy about scarce resources.

Cross-cultural and translated fiction

Tove Jansson’s Letters from Klara contained some very short stories, almost fragments of ideas or flash fiction, from this always interesting, stylistically impeccable author. I had a bit of a French binge with Marie Darrieusecq’s Naissance des fantomes (My Phantom Husband) and Leila Slimani’s Chanson Douce. It is fascinating, if time-consuming, to read books in both languages and see how they compare. I find the English versions a bit colder than the French versions, through no fault of the translators, although I always thought that the English were the masters of the ‘straight to the point, no beating about the bush’ style.

The last one to fit in this category was written in English but depicts a cross-cultural relationship, Leila Abouleli’s The Translator.

Most memorable

It’s been a very good month for reading, with a lot of the books in the above categories vying for the title of ‘Book of the Month’. However, the non-fiction stuck in my mind most this January. I absolutely adored the well-documented biography and sensitive interpretation of Shirley Jackson’s works by Ruth Franklin. I was mowed down and resurrected by the eloquence and clever use of autobiographical detail in Jodie Hollander’s poetry collection My Dark Horses. Last, but not least, I was amazed at the amount of work, passion, dedication and clever detail which went into the creation of the Hamilton musical, as set out in the wonderful book Hamilton: The Revolution, full of lyrics, stage notes, background explanation, mini-bios of cast and creators, and semi-memoir, with great pictures. It offers a brilliant insight into the creative and collaborative process and shows that no genius can operate in isolation.

Glacier on the Grossglockner in Austria. Just because they are receding in worrying fashion.

Summer Update on #EU27Project

What is lovely about the #EU27Project and its easy-going nature is that it bubbles along nicely even if I somewhat neglect it occasionally. And that is thanks to all of your contributions, dear readers and bloggers. Let me try to summarise, however, what has been added to the bouquet of links over the past 3 months. We now have a total of 70 reviews up there (although I have to exclude 4 which are either duplicates or errors) and, for the stats fiends amongst you:

France leads the way with 12 reviews
Austria is punching well above its size with 9
Germany and The Netherlands have 6 each
Denmark and Italy are next, with 5 each
Ireland and Finland have 4
Poland and Belgium are on 3
Portugal, Croatia and Czechia are on just 2 each
And poor Spain only has 1 review – thank you Lizzy!

We have had the good fortune of attracting some new contributors. Marcelle is a Norwegian booklover who blogs at Lesser Known Gems. As the name indicates, she likes finding the less obvious classical authors and books which deserve to be more widely read, and she does so from a very international perspective. She has added some Portuguese, Italian, Austrian Belgian and Dutch gems to our links page. In fact, her puzzled review of Grazia Deledda’s After the Divorce made me seek it out to read and make up my own mind.

Emma from Book Around the Corner has also joined us with a review of short stories by 1920s Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. And I’m delighted to say that Maphead has come back after a long absence with a Croatian entry.

Elsewhere, we have plentiful and excellent reviews from Jonathan, Susan Osborne, Lizzy’s Literary Life, The Book Satchel and Booker Talk. Some of our earlier contributors have taken a wee bit of a rest (as I have myself, so who’s to blame them?), but I hope they will remember to link some more of their reviews in the future. In the meantime, there is plenty catch up on here, if you just click on the Mister Linky button at the bottom of the page, you will see all of the countries, books and blogger names. Please feel free to add your own links, even if they are books you’ve read a few months ago. The more the merrier!

European Union flags outside EU headquarters in Brussels

So my conscience is now telling me it is high time to pay some attention to previously unreviewed countries. I still have that collection of poetry from Malta. I have recently acquired a Latvian book High Tide by Inga Abele. I’ve kept mentioning Miklos Banffy (Hungary) and Javier Marias (Spain). On my ereader, I’ve got mainly German and French authors, so I will leave that aside for the time being. Above all, I keep meaning to review Romanian authors – and have indeed read quite a few in preparation, but then decided that they weren’t quite right for this project. Maybe I’m being too fussy.

What countries from the EU27 would you like to know more about? What have you read recently which opened your eyes to a whole new culture?

WWWednesday: What Are You Reading? – 16th August

WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open for anyone to join in and is a great way to share what you’ve been reading! All you have to do is answer three questions and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.

The three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

A similar meme is run by Lipsyy Lost and Found where bloggers share This Week in Books #TWiB.

Current:

Ileana Vulpescu: Arta Compromisului (The Art of Compromise) – a Romanian writer for #EU27Project, although I can’t really claim her for #WITMonth, as she hasn’t been translated into English

Chris Whitaker: All the Wicked Girls – to be reviewed soon on Crime Fiction Lover. I loved his previous book Tall Oaks, but this one is quite different, although it still depicts small-town America.

Finished:

Svetlana Alexievich: The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II (transl. Pevear & Volokhonsky) – another wonderful choice for #WITMonth, this is oral history at its most riveting and poignant. Such strong women, but the scars are there. Review to follow.

Elena Varvello: Can You Hear Me? – a perfect fit for #WITMonth and #EU27Project

Mohsin Hamid: Exit West – this one doesn’t fit into any of my reading plans, but I saw the book at the library and I’d better read it before I need to return it. Besides, I can never resist a story about refugees. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.

Margaret Millar: Collected Millar (Vanish in an Instant, Wives and Lovers, Beast in View, An Air that Kills, The Listening Walls) – this is for a feature I’ll be writing for Classics in September for Crime Fiction Lover, reviewing the work and legacy of Margaret Millar and suggesting the top five reads if you are new to her excellent suspense novels. The real and inimitable creator of domestic noir.

Have you read any of the above? And what are you currently reading or planning to read? Do share in the comments below. You know I am such a nosey parker!

Fortnightly Round-Up – 10th June 2017

Well, it’s been a very quiet and uneventful fortnight… just kidding, of course! I probably got too loud and obnoxious for those who are not politically inclined, including on Twitter, but I am over it now.

General Update

What fun we had with the General Election here in the UK on the 8th of June! Faced with such a bad campaign from my own MP (known as Prime Minister Theresa May to others), I was tempted to think she didn’t want the job. Except she obviously does, because she is clinging to it by the skin of her teeth, with an alarming alliance which could start up all sorts of nasty processes again in Northern Ireland. A new election before the end of this year seems likely – hugely fatiguing for everybody, especially the voters. You begin to see the attraction of military coups, don’t you, as people start muttering about how much they crave stability…

But this is not a political blog, and on a personal level it has been a fairly quiet and contented time: half-term holidays, a birthday party for my youngest, meeting up with old friends, impromptu flower arrangements. I managed to rescue a few peonies before the storm flattened them and blew away most of their petals. I am becoming most definitely middle-aged…

Book Haul and Writing Update

Aside from the small pile of books I managed to accumulate during my trip to London, I also ordered a few second-hand books from various sources, based upon the recommendations of my fellow bloggers and Tweeters. This is where I get all of my book-buying impulses nowadays!

Roberto Bolano’s quasi-crime novel was praised by one of my fellow Crime Fiction Lover reviewers Phil Rafferty as being one of the books which got him hooked on crime. Yuri Herrera has been reviewed by Tony Malone and Stu Jallen; also, it’s about migration, so that’s three favourites right there… The British Library Crime Classics often throws up interesting little gems and this particular title Family Matters was recently reviewed by Guy Savage. Finally, I succumbed to Miles Franklin’s books following Kim Forrester‘s spirited recommendations of books on Twitter, with a particular emphasis on Australian fiction, which I have read all too little.

I can now tell you about my writing prize for poetry, although I am none the wiser if it was 2nd or 3rd (I do know it wasn’t 1st). It was the Geneva Writers Group Literary Prize, now in its fifth year. This year the judges were Karen Sullivan of Orenda Books for Fiction, Nick Barlay for Non-Fiction and Naomi Shihab Nye for Poetry. And that is the reason I am so super-excited to have won anything at all, since Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favourite contemporary poets and also the person who single-handedly inspired me to go back to writing poetry in 2012, after a couple of decades of neglect.

Blogging Round-Up

I’m having great fun digging up some of the more obscure times from my bookshelves – it amuses my geekish nature and brings back fond memories. Over the past fortnight, I’ve looked at my Japanese collection and my small collection of hardcover books.

Two blog posts which I try to include on a monthly basis are my May Reading Summary and Six Degrees of Separation meme. This time the latter started with a book I hadn’t read, Steve Martin’s Shopgirl, so it required some acrobatics to find suitable links.

The blog post that got the most attention this past fortnight was my personal reflection on The Handmaid’s Tale and its recent TV adaptation. I was amazed, flattered and humbled by just how many people read it, talked about it, tweeted about it, including many people who had never visited my site before. Thank you all! It completely smashed my previously modest blogging stats. I seldom get more than just over 100 visits per day (on a good day), but the day I posted that I got 776 and the blog post was viewed nearly 1000 times.

My favourite blog post to write, however, was the simple description of my very enjoyable day out in London.

For those who prefer me when I am less loquacious, however, I also posted two poems: an autumnal one and a military-inspired caper about depression. And of course I continued with my eye candy Fridays of tiny homes and sheds.

February 2016 Reading Round-Up

Trying to stick to my resolution and read only from my TBR pile, but a few slipped through the net (in addition to the usual review copies).

TBR on the shelves:

Andrew McMillan: Physical
Petina Gappah: The Book of Memory
Denise Mina: Gods and Beasts
Klaus Vater: Am Abgrund (Es geschah in Berlin 1934)

Netgalley Guilt:

Claire Vaye Watkins: Gold Fame Citrus – DNF
Asne Seiersted: One of Us
Simon Booker: Without Trace
Jeanne M. Dams: Blood Will Tell
Massimo Marino: Daimones (Part 1)
Melissa Harisson: Rain – Four Walks in the English Weather
Hideo Yokoyama: Six Four

Review copies sent by publishers:

Karl Ove Knausgaard: Some Rain Must Fall
He Jiahong: Black Holes
Yusuf Toropov: Jihadi- A Love Story
James Oswald: The Damage Done
Kate Medina: Fire Damage

Slipped through the net:

Amanda Jennings: In Her Wake
N. J. Fountain: Painkiller
Fred Vargas: Temps Glaciaires

Male/female ratio: 9 male/ 9 women and one not known

English language/translated (or foreign) ratio: 13 in English/ 6 translated

Many good reads this month, but the most unforgettable (and unsettling) book of the month: Asne Seiersted’s account of the Norwegian massacre in 2011.

As you may have noticed, I am also a little behind on reviews, because I’ve been trying to work, write and go skiing with children on holidays. On the days when they weren’t ill and demanding my attention, or else I was coming down with flu yet trying to concentrate enough to write a professional article. Reading, however, proved the perfect antidote to tired muscles and brains!

In terms of writing, I have not progressed much this month with the middle and end, but I have edited the opening of my novel, written a synopsis and found a (temporary?) title. I have also submitted some poems (and had one accepted), so it’s been a month of timid progress.

Six in Six Book Meme

I found this delightful book meme with Margaret over at Books Please. It was something started by Jo at The Book Jotter. You summarise six months of reading, sorting the books into six categories. Jo suggests plenty of categories, but you can also create your own. The same book can obviously feature in more than one category.

Here is my version for 2015, with links to my reviews where those exist. I had a hard time not using the same book more than once for each of the category – that was the one rule I set for myself, so that I could present as many books and authors as possible. It is fair to assume that books I loved and authors I want to read more of are interchangeable.

6 Books I Loved

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji – the best three months of reading, total immersion in a very strange world, yet still fully relatable

Ansel Elkins: Blue Yodel

Tom Rob Smith: Child 44 – particularly effective when read just before watching the film, and comparing the two

Jean-Patrick Manchette: Fatale

Eva Dolan: The Long Way Home (although I could just as well have put her second novel Tell No Tales)

Jonas Karlsson: The Room

6 New Authors to Me

Sara Novic: Girl at War

Sherman Alexie: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Karim Miske: Arab Jazz

Kanae Minato: Confessions

Metin Arditi: Loin des bras

Yasmina Khadra: L’attentat

Some of them were more exciting than others, but I think I want to read more from each of these authors I’ve just discovered.

6 Books that Didn’t Live up to Expectations

Paula Hawkins: The Girl on the Train – entertaining enough, but quite average for my taste, despite its resounding success

Jenny Offill: Dept. of Speculation – poetic and thought-provoking, but ultimately too fragmented and cold for me. Perhaps suffering also in comparison to Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Days of Abandonment’, which I had read just before.

Matthew Thomas: We Are Not Ourselves – moving, well-written in parts, but just too long and trying to squeeze too much in

John Enright: Blood Jungle Ballet – I loved the first book in the series so my hopes were perhaps too high for this one

Vesna Goldsworthy: Gorsky – The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite books, so I thought I’d love to see it transposed into present-day London with all of its foreign money. But alas, it didn’t add anything new…

Stefanie de Velasco: Tigermilk – not the Christiane F. of the new generation of Berliners…

6 Authors I Want to Read More of

Elena Ferrante

Emily St. John Mandel

Laura Kasischke

Virginie Despentes

Kishwar Desai

Tana French

Would you look at that? They are all women!

6 Books I’d Like to See Translated into English

Hubert Mingarelli: La Route de Beit Zera

Jeanne Desaubry: Poubelle’s Girls

Jeremie Gue: Paris la nuit

Liad Shoham: Tel Aviv Suspects

Fouad Laroui: L’etrange affaire du pantalon du Dassoukine – or several other books by this author, he hasn’t been translated at all into English

Friederike Schmoe: Fliehganzleis

Sorry, they are nearly all in French. That’s because I can only talk about those books written in languages I can read other than English – and I’ve read far fewer German books this year and next to no Romanian books. This may be about to change…

6 That Don’t Fit into Any Category But I Have to Mention

Megan Beech: When I Grow Up I Want to Be Mary Beard – spoken poetry by a very young, talented and opinionated woman poet

Tuula Karjalainen: Tove Jansson: Work and Love

Daniel Pennac: Comme un roman – how schools or adults can kill the love of reading; and how to reignite it

Ever Yours: Van Gogh’s Essential Letters

Etienne Davodeau: Les Ignorants – learnt so much about comic books and vineyards, all in a humorous way

Sarah Ruhl: 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write – something any mother/creator/professional can relate to

Reading in June

Longest days, shortest nights of the year, so plenty of time for reading in June – not much time for anything else in fact! It’s the kind of month where I can’t hear myself think, let alone write, we were all so busy with end-of-year stuff. So reading it is, to feed that relentlessly hungry gawp in myself.

#TBR20 Challenge is going well:

#TBR3 Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (also re-reading challenge)

#TBR4 Stefanie de Velasco: Tigermilch

#TBR5 Wendy Cope (ed.): The Funny Side

#TBR6 Kishwar Desai: Witness the Night

#TBR7 Liad Shoham: Tel Aviv Suspects

#TBR8 Ever Yours: Essential Van Gogh Letters

#TBR9: Alex Capus: Mein Nachbar Urs

#TBR10: Sergei Dovlatov: Pushkin Hills

#TBR11: Jeremie Guez: Paris La Nuit

#TBR12: Muriel Spark: Loitering with Intent (also a rereading challenge)

#TBR13: Friederike Schmoe: Fliehganzleis

#TBR14: Fouad Laroui: L’étrange affaire du pantalon de Dassoukine

These last two will be reviewed shortly, or as soon as holidays and children allow.

Review copies:

Cath Staincliffe: Half the World Away

Hakan Nesser: The Summer of Kim Novak

Ruth Ware: In a Dark, Dark Wood

Maggie Mitchell: Pretty Is

Pascal Garnier: Boxes

The One That Got Away:

Etienne Davodeau: Les Ignorants

Some other facts and figures:

18 books read in total, of which 7 can be legitimately classified as crime fiction/psychological thriller. My Crime Fiction Pick of the month (a meme initiated by Mysteries in Paradise) is Witness the Night, although I was also very impressed with Tel Aviv Suspects and Paris la Nuit.

3 books in German, 4 in French, 7 translations (from French, Swedish, Russian, Dutch, Hebrew and Japanese). I haven’t done so well in my Global Reading Challenge, with only Kishwar Desai bringing me to a new country, India. I still have to read books set in Africa, Oceania and South America, and find something for the 7th continent. 9 by women authors, 9 by men. And I am only 3 reviews behind!

1 poetry, 1 graphic non-fiction book, 2 rereading challenges, 1 auto-biography/letters.

Doing the #TBR20 challenge is having a very calming effect on me. Although I’ve still been doing a fair share of reviewing, it has felt much more within my control. I’ve felt much more freedom in the selection of my next book, plus there is such satisfaction to be had when you make a dent in your messy book pile!

Having said that, though, I must admit that I’ve cheated slightly and borrowed some books from the library. I haven’t actually started reading them yet, as they are for the duration of the summer holidays. So I will start them once I’ve completed my #TBR20 – that’s still within the rules, right?

Coming up for the #TBR20? A female French writer, for a change – Sylvie Granotier’s latest. One of my favourite German crime writers, Jakob Arjouni, and The Neck of the Giraffe by Judith Schalansky. Blood Jungle Ballet, set in American Samoa. I may have a change of heart for the remaining two books of the challenge, so I’ll allow myself (and you) to be surprised.

And those library books? The latest Vargas Temps Glaciares, a fictionalised biography of Isadora Duncan (one of my childhood heroines) by Caroline Deyns and Carrère’s L’Adversaire (couldn’t resist, after hearing the neighbours’ story of the real-life event which it’s based upon).