book review Archives - Andrew Blackman

German Literature Month: Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

Reading 9 November 2018 19 Comments

November is German Literature Month, hosted by Lizzy and Caroline! If you’re not familiar with it, it’s an annual celebration of literature in the German language. There’s a schedule of readalongs, but I’m too disorganised for that, so I’m going for the “read what you want, as long as it was originally written in German” category. And what better book to choose than Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, a novel that I have been meaning to read for so many years that I’d almost given up hope of unearthing it from… Read More

A Shocking Memoir From a Stolen Generation

Reading 14 August 2018 8 Comments

I learnt about Of Ashes and Rivers That Run to the Sea from Emma’s excellent review on Book Around the Corner. It’s a very moving memoir by a woman, Marie Munkara, who was taken from her Aboriginal family in northern Australia at the age of 3 and placed with a white foster family in Melbourne. The Stolen Generations Munkara was one of thousands of members of the “Stolen Generations” of Aboriginal children taken from their homes by the Australian government or church missions. According to Wikipedia: “Official government estimates are that in… Read More

50 Years of the Man Booker Prize

Reading 5 July 2018

To celebrate 50 years of the Man Booker Prize, Shiny New Books is reviewing the winners by decade. Read my review of Last Orders by Graham Swift.

Happiness by Aminatta Forna: Review

Reading 17 May 2018 2 Comments

Although in her previous novels Aminatta Forna has grappled with wars and atrocities in Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia, her latest novel, titled Happiness and set in the heart of London, may be her most challenging undertaking yet.

Review of Border by Kapka Kassabova

Reading 4 May 2018 2 Comments

Have you ever read a book that seemed to contain all the right ingredients but somehow failed to live up to your expectations? That’s how I felt after reading Border by Kapka Kassabova.

“H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald: Review

Reading 16 January 2018

H is for Hawk is a beautiful evocation of grief and the way in which the sudden death of a loved on can rip away your sense of control over the world, reminding you that you are powerless in the face of mortality and that everything you love and cling to is transitory.

“Tram 83” by Fiston Mwanza Mujila: Review

Reading 6 December 2017

It isn’t every day that you get to read a Congolese novel in English. In fact, the last time it happened, the country was still called Zaire. Tram 83 is an innovative literary novel that also deals with issues like neocolonialism and the scramble for Congolese resources.

“In Praise of Hatred” by Khaled Khalifa: Review

Reading 4 November 2017 6 Comments

The transition from childhood to adulthood can often be tough. It must be even harder when you’re a teenage girl in Syria who feels drawn to radical Islamist ideology but also has forbidden lesbian fantasies about her best friend.

On the violence of borders

Reading Thinking 23 May 2017 2 Comments

I recently visited Ceuta, a piece of the north African coast that belongs to Spain and is hence part of “Europe”. It was a very strange and disturbing experience to cross that border so easily just by showing my British passport, when many people with different-coloured passports die trying to do the same thing. Here’s a photo I took of the border fence. The houses to the left are in Spain; the hillside to the right is in Morocco. There’s also a small village on the Moroccan side, just out of… Read More