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Continue reading →: Night Squad by David Goodis
Night Squad was written towards the end of Goodis’s career, in 1961, his final work published in his lifetime. It’s a novel of corruption, dirty cops, double-crossing dames, and a cast of villains who will stop at nothing to get what they want. 34 year old Corey Bradford has been…
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Continue reading →: The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
I’m down to my last couple of books from the wonderful Angela Carter, who I would have in my top five favourite authors. As with much of her work, this is a feminist novel, though, rather than her quirk and humour, her anger is really evident. The protagonist, Evelyn, is…
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Continue reading →: The Maroons by Louis Timagène Houat
translated from the French (Réunion) by Aqiil Gopee with Jeffrey Diteman This is a recent reissue of a Reunionese novel, written in French, and first published in 1844. Due to its critical approach to slavery it was initially banned by the French colonial authorities. 180 years after, it has its…
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Continue reading →: Pulp by Charles Bukowski
This was Bukowski’s last novel, published in 1994 shortly before his death. It was written over the previous three years during which he had quite serious health problems, and so understandably is rather fragmented. One is left with the feeling that aware of his approaching demise, he had hurried to…
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Continue reading →: Alindarka’s Children by Alhierd Bacharevič
translated from the Russian and Belarusian by Jim Dingley and Petra Reid I read a lot of translated fiction, but I am struggling to think of a book for which the translators play such a role as in this. Bacharevic’s original was in Russian with parts of it in it…
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Continue reading →: Butter by Asako Yuzuki
translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton Food as an art form seems to be something the Japanese have embraced recently.Off the back of the strangely compelling TV series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, comes this novel. And it seems to work again.. though I couldn’t imagine coming…
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Continue reading →: The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk
translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul This is a charming fictional memoir told by a ninety year old monk that reads like a piece of non-fiction. Luang Paw Tien shares anecdotes of jungle life in Thailand before his village’s transition to large-scale farming and urban development; these he relates…
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Continue reading →: Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson
On and off over the 87 years since its publication this book has enjoyed periods when it extremely highly thought of, and others when it was out of print and forgotten. Now, it does feel a bit dated, but its still interesting to know what all the fuss was about.…
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Continue reading →: Back in the VanI’m back in the van less than two weeks after the surgery. Recovery seems to be incredibly quick. Thanks, of course, to Scott and Leigh Ann for the apartment in the meanwhile. Roja has been a bit confused. Various people have been taking him out for a walk, but he…
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Continue reading →: The Delinquents – (Los Delicuentes)
Last night I completed my duo of really long Argentinian dramas, both of which have been released recently. There’s been something of an outcry about films longer than 90 minutes in the last days. I listened to a couple of pieces on Radio 4 discussing it. Long films are nothing…
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 