Andrew Blackman, literary fiction writer, traveller, book reviewer and essayist

Reading

Reading Roundup for September 2022

The month started with my favourite novel of the year and continued to produce excellent reads—read on for my recommendations.

Reading

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid: Book Review

What would happen if white people started turning brown, one by one? Mohsin Hamid explores the question in his latest novel.

Reading

August 2022 Reading Roundup

My reading in August was dominated by listening to six books by the same author on a long, long road trip across Europe.

Reading

Freedom and Death by Nikos Kazantzakis: Book Review

"Captain Wildboar was his apt nickname in Megalokastro. With his sudden rages, his deep, dark, round eyes, his short, stubborn neck and that jutting fang, the heavy, broad-boned man was…

Reading

The View From Belmont by Kevyn Alan Arthur

The View From Belmont raises interesting questions of race and gender amid the barbarousness of a slave-owning society. The dual narrative was a promising technique, but it didn't feel fully…

Reading

June 2022 Reading Roundup

A summary of the books I read last month, taking me from Barbados to rural Montana via London and Italy.

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 9: Et Cetera

This section in A Universal History of Iniquity includes several interesting fragments, some of which could provide the basis for interesting stories but are not really developed.

Reading

Book Review: Cambridge by Caryl Phillips

This dual narrative set in a 19th-century Caribbean island is an interesting exploration of a critical period, but the narratives feel unbalanced: we spend a lot of time immersed in the prejudices of the plantation owner's daughter, while the account…

Reading

May 2022 Reading Roundup

Here's what I read this month, from a novel set in Cyprus and partly narrated by a fig tree to an exploration of the importance of disorder in cities.

Reading

Man on Pink Corner: Borges Marathon, Part 8

In this story, Jorge Luis Borges takes us into the colourful world of knife fights and gangsters on the streets of old Buenos Aires. It's a compelling portrait and a…

Living

We Are All Connected

Musings on life and feeling good while living in an interconnected and deeply unfair world.

Reading

April 2022 Reading Roundup

This month's reading featured Caribbean literary fiction, politics, economics, and the moving tales of a Berlin chiropodist.

Reading

Race & Class in Jamaican Fiction: Dog-Heart by Diana McCaulay

Dog-Heart tells the story of two Jamaicans from very different worlds. Sahara is a light-skinned “uptown” woman who runs a successful Kingston restaurant. Dexter is a poor, dark-skinned boy from…

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 7: Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv

One of the fun parts of working my way through the Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges is trying to understand where the boundary lies between fact and fiction. In Hakim,…

Andrew Blackman

Andrew Blackman

Andrew Blackman