Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami
Ms Ice Sandwich is a beautiful and endearing novella about a young boy's innocent crush on a grocery-store clerk.
Tyranny and liberation: Birgit Vanderbeke’s The Mussel Feast
There’s a reason why oppressive societies have images of their leader on every wall and statues in every town square. For the tyrant to maintain power, he must be everywhere, or at least give that appearance. In this gripping portrait…
“Tomorrow Pamplona” by Jan van Mersbergen
A road trip taken by two men across Europe to the bull-running at Pamplona. The set-up appealed to me: it’s quite similar to my own novel, with two men on a road trip, exploring the strange relationship between them and…
“Next World Novella” by Matthias Politycki
I finished this 138-page novella in one evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book opens with Hinrich Schepp discovering the dead body of his wife Doro. She has been editing an old manuscript of his, a novel he started writing…