January 2020 Reading Roundup
The first month of the year took me from Greece to Serbia via Vienna (don’t ask!), and in the world of books it took me from a Cretan classic to a medieval poet, via some self-help literature, a road-trip novel,…
Shulem Deen’s Powerful Memoir of Hasidic Life
All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen is a powerful account of the author’s escape from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect known as the Skverer Hasidim—an escape that ultimately costs him his relationship with his wife and kids. But…
Best Books I Read in 2019
How was your reading year? I read 58 books overall, which was not as many as I’d hoped, but still about one a week, which is OK for me. It was a busy year in many ways, and I didn’t…
Inside the Syrian Conflict With Jonathan Littell
Homs is one of those places that, like Aleppo and Kandahar and Mosul, has become a byword for suffering. For years it appeared on the nightly news with images of corpses, rubble, wailing widows and intrepid reporters ducking as a…
German Literature Month: The Weight of Things by Marianne Fritz
German Literature Month happens every November, and usually I remember about it some time in December. This year, though, I’m taking part for the second year in a row! After my review of Austerlitz last year, here are my thoughts…
October Reading Roundup
It’s been a busy couple of months for me, driving across Europe and along the Black Sea coast of Turkey, and now exploring Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Add in full-time freelance work and my continuing attempts to finish a novel,…
The Good Life Elsewhere: A Dark Moldovan Comedy of Migration
To describe The Good Life Elsewhere by Moldovan writer Vladimir Lorchenkov as a comedy is slightly misleading. It’s certainly shot through with black humour and absurd situations as some Moldovan villagers go to ever more desperate lengths to escape their poverty and move…
Read to Your Children. They’ll Thank You for It
It’s International Literacy Day today, and I’d like to talk about fostering a love of reading. Recent research by Egmont shows that reading for pleasure has huge benefits for children, and the best way to encourage them to do that…
August Reading Roundup
How was your reading month? I had a good one, recovering from my slump in July and making some great discoveries. Here they are: The Troll Garden by Willa Cather Willa Cather is one of those authors whose work I’ve…