#23 Sunset Park by Paul Auster
I seem to be on a run of male authors at the moment, which is entirely coincidental, I think. Paul Auster is new to me, and I was interested in reading about his literary work to learn that he uses certain literary devices – one of which is a twinning or mirroring of circumstance. I […]
#21 The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
It would be churlish to start with a complaint, but I am a churl. The only problem with this book, for me, was that it piled so many larger than life characters into the narrative that by the time we meet possibly the ultimate (or he may be the penultimate, if you consider unveiling […]
#20 Brewster by Mark Slouka
Many, many years ago, I wrote about ‘The Visible World’ and argued, somewhat contentiously I now think, that it was one of those novels that fails, but fails rather wonderfully. By ‘fail’ I mean that the reader, at the end of the novel, is left with a feeling of dissatisfaction about something (or somebody) instrumental […]
#19 Till Kingdom Come by Andrej Nikolaidis
I was offered an opportunity to review this novel by somebody who knew of my love for thrillers, novels with abrupt changes of focus, and the work of Eastern European writers in general. Let’s begin with that middle category – books with abrupt changes of focus. Two of my favourites, Peter Hoeg’s Miss Smilla’s […]
The art of writing and Makerism
A couple of weeks ago I sold something to somebody and then, a few days later, I saw her wearing it and she told me how much she liked it. Then she asked me why she had never seen me wearing anything I’d made. It’s a bigger question than it sounds because I think it […]
#18 Depths, by Henning Mankell
There seems to be a Scandinavian preoccupation with measurement. In Peter Hoeg’s novel, Borderliners, it is the measurement of time that is central to the narrative, in Depths, by Henning Mankell it is the distance between the surface of the ocean and the sea bed. Or at least, that’s how it begins. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is […]
#17 The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco
I’m one of those odd creatures who believes Umberto Eco’s masterwork to be Foucault’s Pendulum, not The Name of the Rose. The Prague Cemetery did not challenge this view for me. It’s a fantastically constructed novel (as in fantastical, rather than fantastic) which drapes a veil of fiction around some of the most unpalatable facts […]
# 16 Breakfast with the Borgias by DBC Pierre
A novel (or in this case novella) by DBC Pierre should be approached with caution. Unlike Vernon God Little nothing much coruscates in Breakfast with the Borgias: a mobile phone is briefly thrown on a fire like the funeral of modern communications and a sandal strap on an old woman’s foot crackles and snaps like […]
#15 The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife: an unlikely friendship in Kosovo, by Elizabeth Gowing
Elizabeth Gowing is a writer who is new to me and her current book is not my usual reading. I was sent a copy of The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife to review, which is my disclosure statement – and on my usual basis I said I’d read the book, write a review and ask the author if […]
#14 Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
I’m really not doing well with this book review project, am I? But I have my reasons – I published a novel with Amazon, at the same time as my wonderful agent retired from the business, and my new agent (also wonderful, am I not a lucky writer?) is trying to get said novel in […]
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