Here’s a quick roundup of some good books I read this month, featuring Jorge Luis Borges, Anne Tyler and more.
Read MoreOctober 2020 Reading Roundup
Posts tagged Reading
August 2020 Reading Roundup
After my quick trip to the UK last month, I’m back in Belgrade again. We made a few stops on our drive back across Europe, but it’s really not a good time to be travelling. It was, nevertheless, a great time to spend a couple of hours strolling around Venice with no crowds. Here’s the Piazza San Marco as you’ve… Read More
Children of the Cave: A Fascinating Finnish Novel of Ideas
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.
Read MoreMay 2020 Reading Roundup
The COVID-19 lockdown here in Belgrade was very strict in March and April, but this month it ended, and things are more or less back to normal now. The cafes, shops and restaurants are all open again, and there’s rarely a mask to be seen. Everyone seems to have decided the pandemic is over, and so far the numbers are… Read More
April 2020 Reading Roundup
In a short time, I’ve gone from travelling full-time to being under strict lockdown in a Belgrade apartment. Perhaps that’s why I’ve spent the month travelling through the world of books, from the Russian wilderness to a still-divided Germany and from the Balkans to the UK’s “hostile environment”—with a couple of side trips to Jamaica thrown in.
Read MoreIn the Name of Truth by Viveca Sten
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.
Read MoreMarch 2020 Reading Roundup
Overall, it was a very good month of reading for me. Books, as usual, were the lifeboats I ran for when things got tough outside.
Read MoreJanuary 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, and a new theory of climate change. Here we go… Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future by… Read More
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 it’s also more than that. It’s a book that raises interesting questions about belonging, identity, integrity and conformity. The tale… Read More