November has been a busy month for me, but I am determined to slip in a quick review for German Literature Month, hosted once again by book bloggers Caroline and Lizzy. I read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, an intriguing 1927 novel about a man, Harry Haller, who feels so much like an outsider that he identifies himself as a “wolf… Read More
This is a useful overview of the history of Serbia, starting in neolithic times and going right through to the present (it was published in 2018). The book starts by describing the early inhabitants of the territory now known as Serbia, including the surprising fact that it produced 15 Roman emperors, more than the city of Rome itself. Then we… Read More
In Children of the Cave, Finnish writer Virve Sammalkorpi imagines an encounter between a group of explorers and some strange creatures living in a cave in the remote forests of northern Russia that look like animals but also have some very human characteristics.
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In the Name of Truth by Swedish writer Viveca Sten is a well-plotted, intriguing crime novel whose central event is the disappearance of an eleven-year-old boy from a sailing camp on a sandy island in the Stockholm Archipelago.
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Amora won several major literary prizes when it was first published in Brazil several years ago, and having just got my hands on the soon-to-be-published English translation, I can see why. The short stories in this collection by Natalia Borges Polesso are often intimate, often poignant, and always beautifully written. They mostly explore love between women, all the way from… Read More
Imagine you’re a parent who’s always done the right thing, lived life carefully and respectfully, had a decent job, raised a family. Then you see your children’s lives and marriages falling apart. Your son cheats shamelessly on his wife. Your daughter and granddaughter behave in ways you find distasteful. Are you responsible for the sins and failures of your adult… Read More
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 it’s also more than that. It’s a book that raises interesting questions about belonging, identity, integrity and conformity. The tale… Read More
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 shell lands close by. In my childhood, Beirut and later Sarajevo were similar shorthand for misery, along with Belfast during… Read More
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 on The Weight of Things by Austrian writer Marianne Fritz. There are some pretty horrible characters in The Weight of Things, from… Read More