Sunday Praise: What’s Made Me Happy This Week?
I managed to have a coffee with a good friend before everything closed up again for two weeks and it was nice to feel briefly normal! The brilliant Stephen Sexton, who I have raved about before on the blog, has only gone and won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2020 for his first collection,…
Three short classics from the 746 for #NovNov
No 454 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle #NovNov
I sometimes marvel that I have got to the age I have without reading any Arthur Conan Doyle. Sometimes I think, a character becomes so ingrained into the public consciousness (Holmes or Poirot say) that it’s easy to forget the need to actually read the stories they appear in! So, I decided to start with…
Read more No 454 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle #NovNov
No 455 Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Tim Parks
I’m continuing Literature in Translation Week for Novellas in November with Sweet Days of Discipline by Swiss writer Fleur Jaeggy. Fleur Jaeggy’s short novel, beautifully translated from Italian (the language Jaeggy writes in) by Tim Parks is an atmospheric evocation of the cruelties and emotions rife in a boarding school in postwar Switzerland. The narrator,…
Read more No 455 Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Tim Parks
No 456 The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind, translated by John E Woods
It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Patrick Süskind. I’ve long been a fan of Perfume and I enjoyed his one man play The Double Bass, so I was keen to try more of his work. The Pigeon also covers two categories for my November reading – Novellas in November and German…
Read more No 456 The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind, translated by John E Woods
No 457 The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine & Aviva Kana
The Taiga Syndrome is a beguiling and dream-like novella exploring lost love and the wish to disappear. It is impossible to characterise but is part fairytale and part noir fiction, blending in magical elements to create a shimmering, slippery story. The Taiga Syndrome follows an unnamed ex-detective, tempted by one last job searching for a…
No 458 Chess by Stefan Zweig, translated by Anthea Bell
It’s Literature in Translation Week for Novellas in November and I’m kicking off with a fantastic short work by Stefan Zweig, which will also count towards German Literature Month! Chess (or Chess Story) is a masterpiece of short fiction, packing more into its slim pages than many novels. The story is narrated by an Austrian…
Read more No 458 Chess by Stefan Zweig, translated by Anthea Bell
No 459 Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson may be the perfect novella. It may even, for me, be the perfect book. It is epic yet small, and contains the multitudes of life within a little over 100 pages. The economy of language on display is paired with a surfeit of emotion, giving this slim book the heft…
No 460 Mostly Hero by Anna Burns #NovNov
Calling Mostly Hero a novella might be pushing my luck slightly. A long short story maybe? No matter how you categorise it though, Mostly Hero is an amusing and unexpected romp through the world of superheroes as depicted by the unique voice of Booker Prize-winner Anna Burns. Published as an e-book before the publication (and…
