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Continue reading →: The Bishop’s Villa by Sacha Naspini
published 2024 – translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford Based on actual events that took place in a village in the south of Tuscany, Naspini’s own home town, this concerns a cobbler leading a simple life, who is drawn into helping partisans fight against fascists and Nazis without being…
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Continue reading →: Freakslaw by Jane Flett
Scottish Fiction – Published 2024 Is the world ready for another ‘carnie’ novel? Maybe.. but the standard is high.. Nightmare Alley, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Geek Love, The Night Circus, Nights at the Circus, Swamplandia!… and though readable, this doesn’t make the grade. Set in Scotland in the 1990s,…
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Continue reading →: Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda
translated from the Spanish (Mexico) by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary An unnamed narrator at an unnamed university becomes increasingly obsessed with man named Gordon, who may be his tutor, as we are led to believe initially, though could be his colleague. Their relationship unfolds as the novel proceeds, with…
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Continue reading →: The Sick List by Ansgar Allen
British Literature – published 2021 An unnamed narrator at an unnamed university becomes increasingly obsessed with man named Gordon, who may be his tutor, as we are led to believe initially, though could be his colleague. Their relationship unfolds as the novel proceeds, with reference to books Gordon has borrowed…
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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…
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 