I am a 40 something book buying addict trying to reduce the backlog one book at a time!
I’ve long been a fan of Paul Auster’s work – since I was blown away by the New York Trilogy which I read – too many years ago – at university. For some unknown reason, I haven’t read any of his recent work so I was delighted to see the brilliant Annabel at Annabookbel introduce…
Read more No 496 Invisible by Paul Auster (for Paul Auster Reading Week)
Beside the Sea (Bord de Mer) is Véronique Olmi’s debut novel. First published in France in 2001, it went on to become a bestseller across Europe. This was the first book published by Peirene Press and it was a brave choice for a publisher that has now become synonymous with producing quality work in translation.…
Read more No 497 Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi, translated by Adriana Hunter
Mother says there are rats in the rockery. ‘You’ll have to do something about them,’ she says, ‘or they’ll over-run the whole place.’ Ratman’s Notebooks was published in 1968 and was one of only four books that Stephen Gilbert wrote before he stopped writing altogether. The fact that it is still in print is probably…
Read more Northern Exposure: No 498 Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert
It might come as a surprise, but I am quite the horror fan although my preference is for movies over books. Horror books never quite have the same scare factor for me, but I am a big fan of horror movies, particularly those from Korea and Japan. I saw Hideo Nakata’s seminal adaptation of Ring…
Read more No 499 Ring by Koji Suzuki (translated by Robert B.Rohmer & Glynne Whalley) #JLC13
Carol Shields is one of those authors who never disappoints. The Republic of Love was in my Top Five books of 2016 and I have enjoyed all the work of hers that I have read. Swann is a playful and insightful look at the work of literature and academia as a group of disparate characters…
Five Star Billionaire is an ambitious, but not wholly successful attempt to evoke the overwhelming scale and pace of modern day life in Shanghai, told through the loosely connected lives of five Malaysian Chinese immigrants. In different chapters, all titled with the recognisable cliché of self-help speak, each character struggles through Shanghai trying to make…
