Northern Exposure: The International by Glenn Patterson (book 13 of #20booksofsummer)
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…
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Catching up and rounding up! (Books 10 – 12 of #20booksofsummer)
20 Books of Summer 2019!
20 Books of Summer – coming to a blog near you soon!
No 556 Life A User’s Manual by Georges Perec #20booksofsummer
Prior to reading Life A User’s Manual, I did a bit of research on Georges Perec. Now that I’ve read this undoubted masterpiece of a novel, it’s no surprise to learn that he was a keen member of Oulipo, a literary society founded by Raymond Queneau and mathematician Francois le Lionnais. Coined the Workshop for…
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Age, youth, childhood and race – a 20 Books of Summer round up!
Reaching for the finish line – #20booksofsummer
No 566 Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill #20booksofsummer
Bad Behavior was published in 1988 and it marked a striking debut from Mary Gaitskill. This collection of nine stories features tales of sexual obsession, drug addiction, and the darkest sides of human relationships. Several of the stories feature young women working as prostitutes, through either choice or necessity, most with a striking naïveté despite…
Read more No 566 Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill #20booksofsummer
No 569 Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil #20booksofsummer
Jeet Thayil has poured his experience of his years as a drug addict in Mumbai into Narcopolis, a sprawling, hallucinatory journey through Bombay from the 1970s to the present day. The novel opens with an astonishing Prologue that features one sentence that is over six pages long and sets out Thayil’s goal of creating a…
