The Shitos are a family of eight, spanning four generations and living under the one roof. When a young woman, Noriko, marries the Shito son Kazuhito, she is marrying more than just one man; she is marrying in to his family. Every family has its quirks, its particular way of doing things, but in…
Read more No 507 Now You’re One Of Us by Asa Nonami, translated by Michael Volek & Mitsuko Volek
Well, that’s it for another year. 20 Books of Summer ended yesterday and for myself, it has been a great success. All 5199 pages were read and then some! I read all 20 books – although a lot of those review were mini ones, which I had promised myself I would try to avoid. Time…
Novels about the city of Belfast have a tendency to be set during the Troubles. It is too ingrained in the very fabric of life here to be otherwise. Glenn Patterson’s novel The International does something different. In January 1967, the inaugural meeting of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association too place in The International…
Read more Northern Exposure: The International by Glenn Patterson (book 13 of #20booksofsummer)
With its forthright exploration of female sexual desire, depression and female emancipation, The Awakening, first published in 1899, was such a shock to readers of the time that it was shunned and then forgotten for decades. This short, but penetrating novel was rediscovered in the 1960s, and is now thought of as a landmark of…
Read more No 519 The Awakening by Kate Chopin (book 9 of #20booksofsummer)
You know I’d go back there tomorrow But for the work I’ve taken on Stoking the star-maker machinery Behind the popular song Free Man in Paris, Joni Mitchell Despite a subtitle that’s enough to put even the hardened music fan off, Barney Hoskyns’ exploration of the Los Angeles singer-songwriter scene of the early 1970s…
Read more No 520 Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns (Book 8 of #20booksofsummer)
