My reading this month took me from Japan to Guadeloupe, via Scotland and Cote d’Ivoire.
It’s been a few months since I did a reading roundup, so here we go. Instead of trying to catch up on the months I missed, I’ll just focus on what I read in August.
After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell
Alice takes a train from London to Scotland to see her family, but something she sees at Edinburgh station is so traumatic that she takes the next train south, and later, in London, she steps into traffic. She spends the novel in a coma, and the disjointed narrative with its shifting narrative voices and timelines reflects her precarious state, while showing us how she came to this point. It’s a beautiful literary novel, and one of the strangest but most poignant love stories you’re likely to read.
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki is one of the best-selling novels of all time in Japan, and I can see why. It’s a story about a young man’s complicated relationship with his older mentor, but it’s also a beautiful evocation of the end of the Meiji era, and beyond that it’s a meditation on timeless themes like guilt, honour, and atonement. Another great read!
Unbuild Walls by Silky Shah
Next, a little non-fiction. I think I ended up reading it simply because I loved the title, which refers to an excellent Ursula Le Guin quote from The Dispossessed: “Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I am going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to go unbuild walls.”
I was expecting this book to make a strong case for the abolition of border restrictions and immigrant detention, but instead it gets quite deep into the weeds of immigrant justice campaigns in the USA over the past two decades. There’s value to that, of course, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for.
Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? by Maryse Condé
I’ve been meaning to read more novels by Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé since her death last year (I know, it’s a horrible reason to get to long-delayed reading projects, but that’s the truth of it). Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat? is a wonderful tale spanning settings across Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America around a century ago. The cover calls it “A Fantastical Tale”, and it delivers plenty of magical realism as well as a diverse cast of fascinating characters and the ongoing mystery of who really did slash Celanire’s throat (and how she will take her revenge!).
The Verdict
I didn’t read as many books in August as in previous months, but what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality. The three novels were excellent, and the non-fiction book was good—it was more that I wasn’t the right audience for it.
To discover more good books, look at the list of all the books I’ve reviewed on this site since 2007. And be sure to check out other people’s roundups over at Feed Your Fiction Addiction.
There are 11 comments
Sometimes quality over quantity is the way to go! I’m glad you had a good reading month.
Thanks for stopping by, Keira. Yes, I agree!
I would like to recommend some titles by a Guadeloupean author, Simone Schwarz-Bart:
Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle (translation: The Bridge of Beyond) and
Ti-Jean L’horizon (translation: Between Two Worlds).
Enjoy
Hi Richard, It’s good to hear from you, and thanks for the book recommendations. I haven’t read anything by Schwarz-Bart, but I just looked them up and they both sound excellent. Your recommendations always seem to be on point – I think we have similar reading tastes.
Thanks for the reviews. I’m putting the first two on the to read list and maybe the 4th one as well.
Excellent! Hope you enjoy them, and don’t hold it against me if you don’t 🙂
Nice travels through books!
I so loved Kokoro, and several books by the same author.
Here is my August recap: https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/08/30/2025-august-wrap-up/
Thanks Emma! Yes, Kokoro was beautiful, especially the third section. I’ll check out your roundup now 🙂
A good month! I always think quality trumps quantity 🙂
Also, saw you adorable kitten Hayden in your newsletter! And yeah, same here, things are calm for a while and then get upturned for a little while and then find stasis again. Like waves on the ocean or ripples on a pond. Sorry to hear about the contract ending, but I hope you are able to find new direction in the time and freedom.
I like that image of the waves, Stefanie. Yes, it was quite unsettling at the time, but I like the idea of finding calmer waters again soon. And yes, more time = more possibilities!
I’ve been toying with the idea of a Maryse Condé project, but then I get overwhelmed by how many books she’s written because they ALL sound so interesting. This one I either hadn’t heard of (or saw the title only in French at some point) or registered but it’s interesting to think there’s some plot/story in there (revenge!) as I tend to associate her with writing about places and ideas and figures more.
I know what you mean about American political writing; I actually do crave the detail, and I think that a certain amount of detail, even if you’re not from there, is useful and interesting… BUT there’s a point at which the acronyms and dates and processes is just too much and I feel like I’m not even doing it justice anymore, just allowing my eyes to travel across one line and then the next, without context. /sigh