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Continue reading →: Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga
translated from the French (Rwanda) by Mark Pollizzotti – Feminist Press Set in Rwanda in the 1930s, when it was under Belgian rule, this is the story of one of many Christian missionaries. On a forbidden hillside a temple was built, with the permission of the Rwandan chief, and services…
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Continue reading →: Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera
Translated from the Spanish (Mexico) by Lisa Dillman – Published 2024 In a brief but important preface Herrera explains how Benito Juárez, who was to become one of Mexico’s greatest political leaders, spent eighteen months in exile in New Orleans in 1853.Conveniently for Herrera, no history book holds any record…
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Continue reading →: Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway
British Fiction – Published 2024 I had to be persuaded to read this, and I am very glad I was.I have read Harkaway before, Tigerman, which I enjoyed, but was suspicious about him taking on his father’s eponymous hero. I was pleasantly surprised, and indeed gripped by Harkaway slipping easily…
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Continue reading →: Havoc By Accident by Georges Simenon
translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert First published in 1943 as a translation, this is a collection of two shorter novels, Talatala and The Breton Sisters. It really is a book of two halves.. Talatala is one of Simenon’s African novels, and was subsequently published in a collection of…
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Continue reading →: Back at Shap
I’ve been back in Shap for a few weeks now enjoying some unseasonably dry hills, all that much better with a new hip. It has hardly rained in that time with the weather trapped under high pressure, the odd sunny day, but windless, attracting mist frequently, fantastic when you can…
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Continue reading →: The Catchers by Xan Brooks
British Literature – Published 2024 For Brooks these days, writing is of secondary importance to his focus on cinema, for which he is an associate editor at the Guardian.I very much enjoyed his first novel, [book:The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times|32869842], and this is a strong follow-up.…
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Continue reading →: Indian Nocturne by Antonio Tabucchi
translated from the Italian by Tim Parks – published 1984 In the 1980s an unnamed man searches for his missing friend, Xavier, in India, from its luxury hotels to its seedy backstreets. It’s beautifully told, and a wonderful example of less is more, with minimal descriptions, short sentences and not…
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Continue reading →: Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis
British Literature published 2024 – non-fiction – conservation Garbage; the book’s subject, and absolutely not a word to describe its content, which is refreshing, hopeful and an engrossing read. Franklin-Wallis chronicles has global trek through sewer systems, toxic chemical waste sites, recycling plants and household waste, in this very through…
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Continue reading →: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
First published 1872 – Irish – Gothic Romance The classic story of a lesbian vampire written in 1872 reads as well today as it can ever have done, though I would have enjoyed being around for the furore and genuine shock amongst the public and the media when it was…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 