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Continue reading →: Dumplings of the Danish AlpsA couple of small victories in the last few days. I was able to put on the right sock on Wednesday morning, and that was followed on Friday by the running shoe. Over the last five weeks, since my surgery, I have been walking in my Keen sandals, which are…
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Continue reading →: Cannibals by Shin’ya Tanaka
translated from the Japanese by Kalau Almony This is a dark short novel that relates the coming of age of 17 year old Toma as he tries to avoid the fate of becoming like his abusive father. He lives in a hot and unpleasantly humid village by a polluted river…
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Continue reading →: Forests of Northern Europe..a few to add to the collection. Day 5.. Though the first conundrum of the day was fitting the hundred Belgian beers into the van in such places were they would sit snuggly. It may seem a lot, but they are, in theory at least, to last 4 months. I’ve…
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Continue reading →: On The Road AgainRecovery from my hip surgery was much quicker than I could have hoped for. Within days I was walking more than a mile. I delivered a letter from the hospital to my local GP surgery on foot on day three. It was slow and steady going with walking poles, but…
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Continue reading →: Eyes of the Rigel by Roy Jacobsen
translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw This wonderful series of books, this the third of four, has been so inspirational to me, that I am departing next week for several months travelling to several of the less populated Norwegian islands like Barrøy. Though Barrøy is a…
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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…
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 