The Rag
I like literary magazines. I read a lot of them, although I don’t review them on here too often. I just read a new one called The Rag (well it’s new to me, but this is Issue 5 so I…
First unsolicited review
With the official launch of A Virtual Love still a couple of weeks away, it was nice to go on Amazon the other day and see the first ‘surprise’ review, by which I mean one written by someone who just…
The Sense of an Ending, explained
A quick explanation of the ending of Julian Barnes's novel The Sense of an Ending—followed by a long discussion in the comments for those who want to go deeper.
German Literature Month readalong, Effi Briest – part 3
So it’s week 3 of German Literature Month, organised by Lizzie and Caroline. We’re reading Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane. Why do you think Effi kept Crampas’s letters? I found it a little implausible at the time, because it was…
“Social Ecology and Communalism” by Murray Bookchin
This book is a good, short introduction to the ideas of Murray Bookchin. He draws on anarchist and socialist thought to come up with a model of social organisation that will be more fair not only to humans but also…
New review for On the Holloway Road
On the Holloway Road picked up a good review from Emma over at Book Around the Corner yesterday. I don’t normally tell you about every review, but I wanted to highlight this one particularly because of a beautiful description of…
“Book of Clouds” by Chloe Aridjis
A very quiet, meditative book about a Mexican woman adrift in Berlin. Tatiana is alienated from her family and her friends, cut off from the rest of the city, uninterested in forming a relationship with anyone. She gets a part-time…
“Long Time, No See” by Dermot Healy
Have you ever read a book all the way through and felt that you missed something really big? You get that unsettling feeling that perhaps the whole thing is one big allegory that you failed to get. Or maybe you…
“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…