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Continue reading →: Snæfellsnes PeninsulaThe Snæfellsnes peninsula in Western Iceland known for its dramatic landscapes. I’m currently reading the travel journals of William Morris, an English writer, poet and artist who travelled here in 1871 and 1873. He describes the landscape as ‘Most Unimaginably Strange’. At the age of 40 his marriage was struggling,…
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Continue reading →: Akureyri to SnæfellnesI stayed two nights at Húsavík. The campsite, next to the sports fields, was closed, but it was still possible to stay there; better really, no cost, and no facilities, which I wouldn’t have needed anyway. At this time of year the town looked very welcoming. Tourists still arrive, off…
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Continue reading →: Way Far Away by Evelio Rosero
translated from the Spanish (Colombia) by Victor Meadowcroft An elderly man is searching for something, though we are not aware of what until almost half way through. His travels take him to a bizarre town shrouded in mist, where mice carcasses lie rotting in the street, boys play football with…
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Continue reading →: Into IcelandThe Norröna ferry was much busier than I expected, though there were hardly any other vehicles boarding at Torshavn. It’s the schools midterm break in the Faroes and the four day break, taking the ferry to Iceland, a 20 hour crossing, staying a day at Seyðisfjörður, then returning, was a…
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Continue reading →: Mouth Full of Earth by Branimir Šćepanović
Translated from the Serbian (Montenegro) by Lovett Edwards This is a long out of print book with a simple premise that is a delight to read. It has a fable-like quality to it and a particularly strong sense of place, that place being a spectacular area of mountains in the…
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Continue reading →: TórshavnI’ve spent the weekend wandering around Tórshavn, parked up at the marina to its south side, and of course, watching a bit of rugby. I find a city with a population of just 14,000 a bit easier to navigate and enjoy. It is a five minute walk to the old…
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Continue reading →: The Seamstress and the Wind by César Aira
translated from the Spanish (Argentina) by Chris Andrews – published 2016 Set on the wild plains of Patagonia this is Aira at his best, weaving a fantastical tale of the search for a missing young boy that triggers an epic adventure all told with his usual economy of words, in…
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Continue reading →: Vágar IslandI’ve had to change my definition of a fine day since I’ve been on the Faroe Islands, to one which doesn’t have heavy rain arriving sideways along with the thirty miles per hour plus winds. A day with breaks in the rain is decent enough, but it’s not the getting…




