Tag: monthly summary

Reading and Events Summary for May 2023

It’s been a very mixed month, not just in terms of the weather, but also with reading and life events. I read 15 books, of which 12 were by women authors, a record proportion I believe. Although my reading theme this month was the Far East, only four of the books were in translation, as many of the authors from that part of the world write in English. I was entranced by the gentle melancholy of How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart, and invigorated by the energy of Five Star Billionaire. I was charmed by the historical crime novel set in war-time Singapore The Mushroom Tree Mystery, a serendipitous discovery at Bristol CrimeFest. I was less enamoured of Rainbirds, but intrigued by the first novel I read set in Papua New Guinea, The Mountain.

In addition to the Far East, I also visited Mauritius via the powerful, poignant writing of Ananda Devi in Eve Out of Her Ruins, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman. I met another group of young people from very different backgrounds but equally directionless perhaps in Kaska Bryla’s The Ice Divers (Die Eistaucher). I also seemed to encounter quite a few women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (or maybe just beyond that point) in several books. Carlota Gurt’s Alone, translated by Adrian Nathan West, was quite a wild ride, although it started off conventionally enough. Baek Se-hee’s I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki, transl. by Anton Hur, is a very candid exploration of low-level but disabilitating depression and low self-esteem – and also fitted into my Far East reading category.

From the remaining books, I was very impressed with Winter Counts, and of course enjoyed Deborah Levy, although this book felt very similar to her recent non-fiction trilogy, to the point where I got confused as to what I was reading. (It also reminded me a bit of the film Tár). Lost for Words about a bookseller and a bookshop was charming but somewhat predictable, while the remaining three books really rather infuriated me. The Cartographers was at least entertaining, if rather full of plot holes, but I could not finish Missing Pieces, which felt completely manipulative (the author deliberately withholding information to make the dual timeline more exciting). And, with apologies to those who loved Sorrow and Bliss, I was profoundly annoyed by Martha and the portrayal of mental illness in that book – as well as the author’s vague and lazy ‘any similarities to real-life mental health conditions are accidental’ disclaimer. Three turkeys and two average reads make for a surprisingly low-scoring month overall, very unlike most of my reading.

Meanwhile, real life started off with a major scare with Maxi, our new cat, but it seems we got lucky and she does not suffer from a major heart defect (although there does seem to be a slight defect which we need to monitor).

My younger son had his final day at school, and has now started his A Level exams. My older son finished his exams and came home – he had pre-ordered the latest Zelda game and has been mostly playing it ever since he got back.

I (or rather, Corylus) was outbid for a book and author I loved – but who can compare with the Big Five publishers? I can’t blame the author for finding the best possible financial deal and exposure. I had the consolation of seeing one of our lovely Icelandic authors Jónína Leósdóttir in action at Bristol CrimeFest, and also find out more about her truly fascinating life and ideas over lunch. Since I only stayed for a few hours in Bristol that Saturday, I missed all the scandal that ensued later that day and the following day, so all I can say is that I hope literary festivals move on with the times and open their gates to a greater diversity of moderators and panellists. There’s plenty of talent out there instead of having the same old faces over and over!

On the translation front, I had to translate a new play in a weekend to be able to take part in a competition, because the play I had translated didn’t meet the criteria. That will teach me to read the small print a bit sooner! I am very excited about the new play, however, as it’s a young female playwright from Romania, and she writes a lot of things that I like, so let’s hope it’s the start of a wonderful collaboration.

Just as I finally got to start physiotherapy this month after my spinal/neck injury in February, I got a new health scare – a sudden itchy, burning rash on my face. The doctor seemed to think it was more likely to be an extreme reaction to an expired face cream (don’t try to save money, throw away your long-opened pots of cream!) rather than shingles, but the antihistamines, ointments and antibiotics don’t seem to be in a rush to work… and my younger son has also reported a rash on his face, although milder than mine. So who knows what it could be? Scabies comes to mind, which makes me feel like a Victorian slum dweller, although apparently it has nothing to do with poor hygiene.

The abundance of Bank Holidays this month has been nice – although from now on I will always have Mondays and Fridays ‘off’, as I’ll be working part-time, so it was just a taste of what’s to come.

Hope your May has been less troubled by sudden showers, mediocre reads and other interruptions! What has been your favourite book this past month? And which one didn’t quite live up to expectations?

Reading Summary March 2023

Two themes emerged this month. One was planned and deliberate, namely the Northern Climes reading, although I ended up with only four books from that part of the world, two Swedish, one Finnish and one Canadian.

The second theme developed accidentally, as all best reading does. I’ve been diligently practising my ballet (and other dance steps) pretty much every day this year, but I had a few days of enforced rest when I hurt my neck and waited to see an orthopedist to figure out how serious it was. So I had to get my ‘ballet fix’ in some other way, which meant reading books about ballet or set in the highly-strung world of professional ballet dancers.

Two of those books were by Meg Howrey, featuring tricky family dynamics as well as the pain and self-absorption of ballet dancers and choreographers.

The best of me is in my work. Not that I’m selfless there. I use my dancers. I use their talent, their devotion, their endless training and ambition, their desire for approval from the mirror and from me. I mine it all and polish the gems. I make them do what I want, and I try to give them something that says, ‘You are seen. There is only one of you in th eworld. I have never seen anyone exactly like you. Thake this movement, it’s yours alone.’

Meg Howrey: They’re Going to Love You

The Cranes Dance is both more dramatic (with themes of mental illness and suicide), but also funnier, with the protagonist Kate Crane’s acerbic wit bringing the highfaluting ballet vocabulary right down to earth. The synopsis of Swan Lake early on in the book is absolutely hilarious.

The Queen reminds Siegfried with some incomprehensible ballet mime that tomorrow is his twenty-first birthday and he’s got obligations, like choosing a bride and getting married. The Prince sulks a bit at this, and makes the gesture for True Love: one hand to the breast, the other held aloft with the first two fingers extended. (You’re gonna want to scootch down and get that program for the explanatory notes on this action, because otherwise you might think that the Queen is telling her son that he needs to get a manicure and that Siegfried is responding by trying to hail a cab, or test current wind conditions.)

The third ballet book this month is probably the most frightening of them all and is non-fiction, written by a ballet journalist. It examines all of the inequities, dangers, outmoded traditions and cruelties of traditional ballet and asks if things could be done better, without endless injuries (and having to dance through them), starvation, pink tights, male ballet princes and submissive female dancers.

Aside from these two themes, I also managed to squeeze in several entertaining but not memorable crime novels (set in Cornwall, northern Greece and the French Alps), a reinterpretation of the Passion by a Welsh poet, and a book about practising art and writing which I found really inspiring (sometimes you need to hear the obvious but presented far more eloquently than you could do it yourself).

All in all, a quieter reading month, perhaps reflective of the worries I have had about my health and about my job (so far all seems to be trugging along as usual): twelve books, seven by women writers, two non-fiction, three in translation.

For April I will be reading some books published in 1940. Although the #1940Club hosted by Simon and Karen only runs for one week, from 10th to 16th April 2023, I have four books planned (Miss Hargreaves, Darkness at Noon, The Invention of Morel and The Secret of Dr Honigberger), so will probably need the whole month to read them all. Especially if I alternate between these and other random reads!

Reading Summary Feb 2023

It’s been a busy month, although it started with a delicious little respite in my old ‘stomping ground’ on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. I have 17 books listed on Goodreads for the past month, although two of them were abandoned at the 40% mark. Seven of the books fitted into my #FrenchFebruary personal reading challenge – and in fact, all of them ended up being French from France, as the only Swiss author I attempted (Joel Dicker) ended up being one of the abandoned books. Eleven of the books were written by women writers (and none of them were in the DNF category), 12 were written in another language. Three I read for (Corylus) ‘work’, one was non-fiction, one will be reviewed for #ReadIreland in March, two were Book Club reads (Blood Sugar for the Virtual Crime Book Club, Embers for London Reads the World), and seven can be approximately put into the crime fiction category (although two of those I did not finish). Six of the books I read were from independent publishers, although I didn’t review all of them for the #ReadIndies challenge.

Please ignore Antoine Wilson’s Mouth to Mouth, which shouldn’t be in this screenshot, because I read it in January (and have already largely forgotten).

Here’s a quick recap of the books I reviewed (most of which also fell into the #ReadIndies category)

My favourite reads this month were probably Romain Gary and Violette Leduc, but Audrey Magee’s The Colony was very, very good as well. I’m still not quite sure about Embers by Márai Sándor – on the one hand, I interpret it as a beautiful example of self-delusion, yearning for a mythical past which never existed and the damage caused by bearing pointless grudges (and I can see historical/political parallels in that). It reminded me a lot of Browning’s My Last Duchess. On the other hand, I am not entirely convinced that Márai intended it to be read in this way: he may have actually shared some of Henrik’s beliefs and regrets for the old order. Anyway, I intend to review it together with two other novels about old mansions that I am currently reading.

I watched a few TV series this month: Wednesday with my younger son (which was entertaining enough, but rather predictable and forgettable), Borgen (watched Season 4 with oil in Greenland, then rewatched the first season, which reminded me why I stopped watching it back in 2013, because it was getting a little too close to the problems in my own marriage, despite my distinct lack of prime ministerial qualities and being considerably less busy than Birgitte Nyborg). It was quite eye-opening watching the documentary Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World, with many political and social details which were either before my time or which I had forgotten.

For most of February, I barely watched any films, but then my older son came back for the last week and we more than made up for it. I thought Tár and Whiplash complemented each other well in their portrayal of bullying behaviour, problematic geniuses and the idea that art has to come from a place of suffering (it takes great pressure to create a diamond etc.). I can never resist films about artists and creators – and they also worked together well with the novel about ballet (and a lot else) that I read by Meg Abbott: The Turnout, which I really enjoyed. Claire Denis’ Beau Travail is a fascinating rare example of toxic masculinity but also the beauty of the male body perceived by the female gaze – with a breathtaking performance by the always watchable and enigmatic Denis Lavant. I also saw Barry Lyndon (one of my older son’s favourite films) in the cinema at the BFI, which is a very different experience from seeing it on a TV screen.

I don’t want to praise either myself or him, but I just wanted to say how delightful it is to have a grown-up child with whom you can spend a lovely day in London, having lunch in Chinatown, discussing drugs, political philosophy and film music while walking down to the Embankment, trawling the second-hand book stands on the South Bank, going to the Poetry Library mini-exhibition on clothes of women poets, watching Barry Lyndon at the BFI and then reading on the train on the way home in companionable silence.

March is going to be Nordic Reading Month for me, with a fairly broad definition of Nordic: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Canada. Of course, if I can fit any more into the #ReadIreland tag, I will, but it promises to be an extremely busy and tiring month at work.

January 2023 Summary

Hasn’t this been the longest month ever? Cold, dark, busy at work, but not quite as miserable as the months preceding it because at least we have all been healthy. I’ve mostly snuggled in my burrow and read – even more than usual, now that I’ve decided not to worry about reviewing every book. 18 books this month, of which 7 fit with the January in Japan challenge (although one of the seven was not written by a Japanese author, but was a non-fiction book about the Japanese criminal world). Nine books in translation, three non-fiction books, ten by women writers, four that could fit under the crime fiction label. A good mix that I can live with.

Here are the books that I have reviewed this month (I am putting the Japanese author names in the Japanese order – surname first):

And here are very brief thoughts on the others I read:

Charlie Higson: Whatever Gets You Through the Night – entertaining, madcap, quick read, made for the screen – as so many current thriller books seem to be. This one is perhaps slightly funnier and slyer than most, fits a bit into the Knives Out/Glass Onion universe.

Percival Everett: The Trees – this one I regret not reviewing properly, as it is a quite unforgettable, excoriating view of the South of the United States and its history of lynching. By taking an almost absurd premise and bringing in lots of fierce humour, it brings this dark story to a wider audience. A surprising novel, with moments of true poignancy, although perhaps a few too many repetitive descriptions of crime scenes (deliberate, no doubt, and I can understand why).

Robert Thorogood: Death Comes to Marlow – my son goes to school in Marlow, so I go there nearly every day and I can see a big splash being made with this book in the local bookshop. I’m always going to read a book set in a place I know well, although I was disconcerted to discover that I know the real vicar’s wife (the mother of one of my son’s best friends) and she is nothing like the one featured in the book. Although I appreciated having three middle-aged women investigators, I couldn’t help feeling that their quirks are being exaggerated for comic effect, that the secondary characters are rather one-dimensional, so all the book really has going for it is the puzzle element. Of course I will continue to read this series, even if I complain about it, simply because of its familiar location.

Elin Cullhed: Euphoria, transl. Jennifer Hayashida – just like I will always read something about Sylvia Plath. This novel is a fictional account of the last difficult year of Sylvia’s life, sticking quite closely to the known facts and trying to combine elements of Sylvia’s real voice from the letters and diaries with a speculation of what must have really been going on in her mind. I am familiar with this kind of fictional recreation of an artistic life from France, where this is a much more common type of literature, but I am not sure what it adds to our knowledge of Plath. Instead, I see this more as the universal portrait of a marriage and a clash of two very strong and creative personalities, two tremendous artistic egos, particularly at a time when it seemed harder to accept equality within married couples.

He loved me as a motif. He loved the picture of me. He loved the type. The American, the emotional one, the poet. He loved my high demands (and hated them). He loved having a thinking wife. He loved having a wife. He loved that I was thinking and grinding my own thoughts, then there was nothing left of them later in teh writing. He loved that I tried by failed. That I got up and was stabbed, like a goat. That I was not who I wanted to be. He loved my imperfections, and I stood in the middle of it and tried to be perfect.

Fiona Spargo-Mabbs: Talking the Tough Stuff with Teens – trying to educate myself and not talk too much, yet encourage a rather silent teenager to open up. An encouraging, non-judgemental book, with many real-life examples.

Bec Evans & Chris Smith: Written – I’ve been following the authors on their Prolifiko website and subscribing to their newsletters, and this is a book about finding the writing routines and habits that work for you, instead of slavishly imitating others. Encouraging, friendly, with lots of good exercises and suggestions for further exploration.

Sara Gran: The Book of the Most Precious Substance – impossible to categorise this book, no wonder the author struggled to get it published and so created her own publishing house for it. It is not as chilling as Come Closer, but you can see elements of anger and grief here too, as well as the quirkiness and humour of the Claire DeWitt crime series. Although touted as a sex magic book (and it certainly contains elements of eroticism and supernatural), it probably won’t fully satisfy fantasy or erotica fans. I like the underlying ‘normalness’ of it, which keeps it somewhat grounded even when we are off travelling in a world of unimaginable luxury. Basically, it is a story of grief, of clinging to a sense of injustice, of the wisdom (and ability) to move on, and the hunger for power and money.

The trick isn’t to protect yourself. It’s to accept life. Not push it away when it gets messy.

The past is over and done. You have no choice but to live with it. There’s no getting over, there’s no making up for. But there;s a chance to see and create something new. That’s the only chance…

…a wall I’d built around something too broken to trust the world with it. But that wall had never kept me safe. It only locked me in with my pain, leaving it to fester and spoil. I’d locked out all hope, all pleasure, and now, with a force like th eocean, the wall had crumbled, and my protection had gone.

Antoine Wilson: Mouth to Mouth – a story within a story, with a supposedly neutral account of the wild tale told by an acquaintance. Another novel about the hunger for power and money, full of self-justification. Quite clever but nor terribly memorable. On the plane to Switzerland I read another book like it translated from French (not featured above, as I will present it as part of my personal French February reading initiative).

I read Balzac’s Lost Illusions for the winter long read for London Reads the World Book Club, and will review it of course during my French February. I still haven’t seen the film, which apparently is only available to stream in Canada. However, I have watched (and rewatched) quite a few good films this month – more than usual by my standards, partly because my older son the film buff was around for 9 days at the start of the month.

I really enjoyed rewatching My Neighbour Totoro for the nth time (especially after seeing the very innovative, delightful staging of it at the Barbican) and the beautiful, warm Portrait of a Lady on Fire, although I was perhaps somewhat less mesmerised by The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction this time round. I was moved by the Korean film Memories of Murder but even more so by the very recent Aftersun (which cut a little too close to home, so there were floods of tears). Stellar performances by Paul Mescal and young Frankie Corio.

By the way, I’ve had some friends asking who is hosting the #FrenchFebruary initiative – and the answer is no one, I just created this personal challenge for myself because I like alliteration and reading French language books. But if you would like to join in and read some books from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec, French-speaking Africa etc. then please do! The more the merrier! Always happy to expand my understanding in this area.

Reading Summary Nov 2022

Although at times I felt like I wouldn’t be able to read anything at all this month, and although I was also engaged in the epic chunkster that is Solenoid, I did actually have a reasonably good and varied reading month. 10 books, of which five fit in the German Literature Month category and two in the Novella in November category. I even managed to review all four German-language books I read – including the biography of the woman who is fast becoming my favourite Austrian writer. Seven books by foreign authors, one collection of short stories (which tends to be a rarity), two non-fiction titles (again, a bit unusual for me, one of them a biography). Only three crime fiction titles, of which one was a translation from German.

My favourite this month was probably the Marlen Haushofer novella The Loft (Die Mansarde). The most escapist was The Peacock by Isabel Bogdan.

I had also planned to attend several literary and theatrical events this month: Iceland Noir, a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, several trips to the cinema, a RADA performance, an online performance of Shakespeare by cues only, a musical at Sonning Mill. In the end, I only managed to see two of our Icelandic Corylus authors in an online discussion with Dr Noir for Barnet Libraries on the very first day of November, plus the rather forgettable One Piece Red anime film and a disappointing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (muddled storytelling, some lovely cinematography) in the cinema.

Reading plans for the final month of the year? I usually like books set in snowy landscapes for December, but this year I will stick to whatever suits my mood while finishing some of the chunksters I had planned: volumes 2 and 3 of Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias, Tessa Hadley’s The Past. Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time. A few lighter reads will no doubt make their way there as well, as I need to forget the rather gloomy second half of this year and turn with renewed optimism to face the New Year.

Reading Summary for Oct 2022

I had been looking forward so much to this month, the only quiet month I usually have at work. I had planned a week of annual leave, lots of reading, writing, translating, rest. Well, the reading part worked out at least! Most of it comfort reading and clearing up a lot of things that had been hanging around on my Kindle for far too long.

17 books read this month (8 by women writers, 4 in other languages/in translation). It is also the month in which I achieved and overshot my Goodreads challenge for the year. I have now read 139 of my goal of 130 books. Unfortunately, quantity does not always mean quality – and in my case, it usually means that things have been going awry in my personal life, so I have felt the need for lots of bookish escapism.

Escapist reading (to me is mostly crime fiction):

The Clever:

Denise Mina: The Long Drop – a fictional retelling of a true crime case I had not previously heard of: the mix of slippery characters and the recreation of a dodgy 1950s Glasgow was quite irresistible, if sad. Denise Mina is one of my favourite writers working today, crime or not.

Abir Mukherjee: The Shadows of Men – this series gets better and better, and we Western readers are on the same journey as Sam Wyndham in getting to understand Indian culture and history in more depth. I loved the fact that this time we had chapters from the POV of Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee too.

Paul Cleave: The Quiet People – it has often been said that a crime author could get away with murder – but could they really? Such a simple yet clever premise to this novel, plus a main character who does just about everything wrong, yet gets us wondering: what would you do if the media and your neighbours had already judged you and found you guilty?

The Fun

James Oswald: Bury Them Deep – always a pleasure to return to the McLean novels, although the Emma storyline is often as annoying as Ari Thor’s relationship with Kirstin (see below). Effective use of folk horror elements, although it does at times strain credibility, and perhaps a little more information about dogging than I needed to know!

Joy Kluver: Last Seen – proves that debut authors need to work harder than established ones, because it was a tight, good story, a solid police procedural with endearing and promising characters. Missing children storylines always scare me, but this was sensitively done, and I can’t wait to see more of Detective Bernie Noel.

Ian Rankin: A Song for the Dark Times – another return to familiar hunting grounds with Rebus, except this time his daughter is involved, but all the old characters are present and correct, Cafferty, Siobhan, Malcolm Fox. The solution to the ‘mystery’ element itself was perhaps a bit of a letdown, but nevertheless a pleasure to read.

Anthony Horowitz: The Twist of a Knife – consummate storyteller, impossible not to be entertained, especially when the author is gently poking fun at himself and his lack of playwriting success

Julia May Jonas: Vladimir – not really crime fiction, more of a campus novel for quite a niche audience (you will love this if you enjoy books about academics and writers, literary analysis, and a depiction of women’s appetites – food, sex, intellectual stimulation – at whatever age). If you liked the Netflix series The Chair with Sandra Oh, you will probably like this. The ending was a bit too neat, but I enjoyed the journey there.

The Average

A. R. Torre: A Familiar Stranger – a preposterous plot, but perky American fiction, very easy to finish in one day, competently written and amusing, although there were some quite obvious cliches (and a bit of a whiny tone in the main narrator)

Nikki Dudley: Volta – I know this author as a poet and really like her work, so feel mean saying anything negative about her debut novel. I think the problem with this one was that it couldn’t make up its mind if it was crime or romance, so it didn’t quite hit the mark for either.

Claire Dyer: The Significant Others of Odie May – Another author I rate as a poet and was curios to encounter as a novelist: an interesting premise (a chance to relive and perhaps repair your mistakes in life in a sort of purgatory with a window on life on earth), and written in a lively, sure-handed way, but became a bit predictable and repetitive towards the end.

Ragnar Jonasson: Winterkill – the last in the Ari Thor series, brought back by popular demand if I understood correctly, and it shows. That annoying wishy-washy relationship with Kirstin, rather predictable storyline (not much of a mystery there), quite pedestrian writing.

Non-Fiction

Two very interesting craft books that I will return to many times, no doubt:

  • Daniel Hahn’s translation diary, while he was translating Diamela Eltit’s Never Did the Fire, is full of interesting discussions about the bigger picture as well as the minutiae of translation challenges and delights
  • Matthew Salesses: Craft in the Real World – a timely reminder of how writing workshops and critiques have been formed by certain cultural expectations, and how they might not suit all writers, particularly marginalised ones. I felt it gave me permission to think and write differently, as well as many ideas of how to improve feedback sessions with my own writing group.

Books I Reviewed or Read for Book Club:

Margarita Garcia-Robayo: Fish Soup – a collection of rather bleak stories from Colombia. Although translator Charlotte Coombe points out the author’s humour in her translator’s notes, I struggled to find it. It was the wrong thing for me to read at this time, but it was for my London Reads the World Book Club.

The remaining two books were probably my favourites this month, and also the only two I reviewed properly. They couldn’t provide more of a contrast: the icy coolness and pared-down style of Winter in Sokcho and my only #1929Club read, the lush, baroque style of Mateiu Caragiale.

Plans for November

I have already started on the #Solenoid2022 readalong with Reem and others on Twitter. I was quietly resisting this, although I had bought the book several years ago in Romania (I am reading it in the original, but the readalong is celebrating Sean Cotter’s long-awaited translation of it). Mircea Cărtărescu has always been a bit hit-and-miss for me (a bit too navel-gazing and narcissistic for my taste, but with great turns of the phrase and some exciting books), but so far I am finding this quite funny and bringing back a lot of memories of living in Bucharest during Communist times.

November is also Novella in November and German Literature Month, so I was initially planning to combine the two by reading shorter works by German/Austrian writers. However, I can feel another set-in-Berlin binge coming on, so I am now setting aside: Jenny Erpenbeck’s Heimsuchung, The Stasi Poetry Circle (non-fiction, although the German author has written this in English), Volker Kutscher’s Gereon Rath mystery, and perhaps (not a German author, but an expat) Bea Setton’s Berlin. Although I expect two chapters of Solenoid per day will keep me busy for most of the month. As will my current translation project.

Reading Summary September 2022

After the physical and emotional turmoil of August, September has continued somewhat in the same vein, the only highlight being the couple of days I got to spend at Bloody Scotland. My reading, therefore, continued to be a mix of translations (four out of eleven books), escapism (two uplifting books) and grit (six crime stories).

Paul Gallico’s Jennie was just what I wanted to cope with Zoe’s loss, while Lolly Willowes was witty and liberating, although I perhaps stretched things too much in comparing it with Tomb of Sand. I was sympathetic to but more ambivalent about the female rage displayed by Mareike Fallwickl and Anke Stelling – I could see what both books were trying to achieve (I think), but feel they might have fallen a little short of their ambitions. HIgashino’s Malice was a clever manipulation of the reader and a psychological study of envy and bullying. You can see what our Crime Book Club thought about it here, thanks to Rebecca Bradley’s recording.

Five more crime books in quick succession on my journey to Scotland and then after I fell ill with Covid: Danuta Kot for the realistic depictions of gangland warfare and poverty in the north-east of England, Lisa Unger for sheer page-turnability about the horrors of online dating, Jane Casey for posing questions about the justice system vs. personal morality, Elizabeth George perorating at some length about FGM, and Emma Styles for a refreshingly accurate rendition of Australian teenage girls’ voices, from very different strata of society.

But the best read of the month was made up of Javier Marias’ loopy sentences and tangential observations about everything under the sun in the first volume of his trilogy Your Face Tomorrow. I have underlined the book liberally (yes, shock, horror!) but will review it when I complete the entire trilogy.

For October, I am keeping any reading plans very flexible, as my mind is flitting about too much at the moment (plus, I will be translating extensively, which always makes me want to seek out different things than I might normally choose). I have read a lot of books that are suitable for the 1929 Book Club, but am not sure if I will read a new one for the occasion. I might reread the quintessential example of Balkanic decadence and nostalgia by Mateiu Caragiale Craii de Curtea-Veche (Rakes of the Old Court).

All the Summer Reading Challenges

I’ve come to the conclusion that, despite three weeks of ‘holidays’, it’s been a difficult summer personally, and this has been reflected in my reading. I have failed in virtually all my reading challenges (not that I take the word ‘failure’ terribly seriously in this context). I’ve read more than #20BooksofSummer, but few of them were on my original list. I read a couple of books in July for Stu’s Spanish and Portuguese Literature Month, but never got around to reviewing them. I’ve also read quite a few #WomeninTranlation books in August (and generally – this is probably one of my favourite themes in reading) but I have no intention to provide carefully considered, deep reviews of any of them.

I just can’t. I don’t have the mental or physical capacity at the moment. It’s a shame, there will be a gap when I look back on my reading and wish I’d done more. In the meantime, here are some very brief and hopefully pithy remarks (I hesitate to call them reviews) about each of them. I have already shared my escapist reading with you, here are the more ‘serious’ reads.

July Reading

I read 12 books that month, of which three escapist crime novels and four for work purposes (two books in German and two translations from the Catalan). I skimmed through two very interesting but simply far too long ones (for my levels of concentration and busy-ness that month): The Shadowy Third about one of Elizabeth Bowen’s love affairs and the letters exchanged and Devil-Land about 17th century Britain. Which leaves only three books, two of which fit into the Spanish/Portuguese language reading challenge.

Maria Judite de Carvalho: Empty Wardrobes, transl. Margaret Jull Costa, Two Lines Press, 2021.

I interpret the title as the emptiness that many women feel when they realise that the people or the love that they held dear have let them down, that sentiments and trust were illusory, and that they have no one but themselves to rely on. It’s a sombre yet depressingly accurate view of heterosexual relationships, shared by three generations of women in the same family, although not necessarily from a position of solidarity. Written in 1966, in a very Catholic and patriarchal Portugal where women had few choices outside the domestic sphere, there is nevertheless much that is still recognisable today. It also reminds me of Enchi Fumiko’s work, particularly The Waiting Years, although that refers to even more demeaning conditions for women in Meiji Japan.

He would arrive home, give me a peck on the cheek, drink his usual glass of whisky, then tell me all about his day in great detail, and so I thought he really loved and needed me. In fact, I was merely a convenient body beside him, an ever-attentive audience always ready to express unconditional admiration when he told me of yet another professional triumph… he needed that applause at home as well, in order to feel he was lord of a little tailor-made world all his own.

For far more detailed and sensitive reading of this book, do read Jacqui’s blog.

Gabriela Cabezón Cámara: Slum Virgin, transl. Frances Riddle, Charco Press, 2017.

This one is the exact opposite of the quieter, more restrained style of Empty Wardrobes. It is a riot of events, characters, stories and style, with elements of tragedy, melodrama, comedy and farce all jostling for attention within its pages. Cleopatra is a trans prostitute in a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, but renounces her work once she has a revelation from the Virgin Mary. Quity is an ambitious journalist keen to cover the story, but ends up falling for Cleo instead. Told in short chapters alternating between the highly individualistic voices of these two characters, filled with colourful slang, replete with religious references and superstition, we encounter a seamy, corrupt but energetic world reminiscent of Jorge Amado’s The War of the Saints.

In the extract below, Cleo is receiving all sorts of gifts from people in the flooded slum who are hoping for miracle cures:

Then with a practicality that surprised me and continues to surprise me in a person who speaks with celestial beings, Cleo told us that God loved us, that through God we could love each other, and that we should have breakfast. It was time and it was freezing cold, and first things first. We could always pray later.

Shirley Jackson: The Sundial, Penguin Modern Classics (first published in 1958)

No one can portray the suffocating qualities of a family and a house better than Shirley Jackson, a real antithesis to the wholesome image of home and hearth projected in the United States in the 1950s. This novel portrays a very strange family, all living in a sinister home with surrealist traits (like being in an Escher drawing), an ‘end of the world’ prophecy which binds them and excludes everyone outside their property. But are the dangers truly in the outside world or within their ‘safe’ house and ‘in-group’? We know that Jackson was agoraphobic at various points in her life, but we also know that she considered the family home to be the most perilous and vicious place too. I don’t want to put you off by the rather serious subject matter and the magical realism style – it is also very sharp, witty and downright funny.

Shirley Jackson is one of my favourite authors, and occupies pride of place on my bedside table: go and read her, pronto, if you haven’t already done so, whether you start with this or with her more famous (but less funny) novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House.

August Reading

This month was less busy but far worse in terms of health, worries and need for distraction. Of the 16 books I read, 13 were escapist literature. Two of the crime novels fitted into the #WITMonth category (one from Turkey, one from Romania), as did two of the more ‘serious’ reads. One was a chunkster, the International Booker Prize Winner Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated (and perhaps annotated/interpreted, as she freely admits) by Daisy Rockwell. I still hope to give it a proper review at some point, and we have a Book Club meeting about it next Monday, so I will leave it for later.

Kawakami Mieko: Ms Ice Sandwich, transl. Louise Heal Kawai, Pushkin Press, 2013.

This is an early work by Kawakami, a slight novella about an adolescent boy starting to learn more about life and people and empathy, through his harmless crush on the unusual looking lady who makes and sells sandwiches at the local supermarket. It is an understated story of loneliness, being ‘different’, feeling unable to stand by your convictions or support the people you love. Far more restrained than Heaven, but conveys a lot in just a few pages. And, it’s a personal preference, but I really like the way Louise Heal Kawai translates Kawakami and wish that we had more of her books featuring this translator! For a more thorough review, please see Tony’s. I do love the cover, though!

Tanya Shadrick: The Cure for Sleep

I picked this one rather randomly, after some recommendations on Twitter. It is the memoir of a woman who nearly died after the birth of her son and resolved thereafter to lead a braver and more creative life, to stop shrinking away from opportunity and hide in routine. It is the most devastatingly honest memoir I have read that does not feature any descriptions of addiction or debilitating health issues. It lays bare all the ambiguities of married life and motherhood, and the eternal conflict between the anchored ‘real’ life and the creative life. I don’t think I could ever be so frank, but that is why I prefer to write fiction rather than memoir.

As someone who constantly feels that I have buried myself too much in domesticity and looking after others, I found this book quite inspiring, although just a tad overwritten at times.

20 Books of Summer

So how did I do in my fabled (and very flexible) 20 Books of Summer challenge? Thanks to my discipline in June, I managed to read 13 books overall (8 in French in June, 2 Spanish/Portuguese ones in July, 3 from the random choices in August). I am currently reading the 14th one from the list, the Berlin-set Schäfchen im Trockenen, but I doubt I will finish it by the 1st of September. Not quite as bad as I expected!

Reading and Watching Summary June 2022

Reading

I was not expecting to read that many books for my French in June attempt, partly because I am a much slower reader in French, and partly because I knew it was going to be a pretty busy time. However, two of the nine French books I read were in English (although I read one of them in parallel with the French edition), which helped, and most of them were quite slim, which helped even more. Here are the French authors I read (their books also fulfilled my #20Books of Summer challenge), with links to the reviews:

Five men and four women writers, but I may read a few more women for #WomeninTranslation month in August. And a triumph of no less than nine books of the eleven French titles I had selected for the #20Books of Summer challenge.

In addition to the French authors, I also read:

  • Joseph Knox: True Crime Story for our Virtual Crime Club, which I thought was very cleverly constructed and different from run-of-the-mill stories about girls who disappeared
  • Tirzah Garwood: Long Live Great Bardfield, which made me wonder just how much women artists have had to put their own career second in order to further their husband’s career (Eric Ravilious in this case)
  • Hilma Wolitzer: Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, a collection of short stories about women’s roles as wives and mothers, dating mostly from the 1960-80s, although there are a couple more recent ones (one written after the death of her husband from Covid was particularly moving). Written with deadpan and occasionally surreal humour, borrowed from the library after listening to the author on the Lost Ladies of Lit podcast.
  • Maud Cairnes: Strange Journey, a body switch story between a middle-class housewife and an aristocratic society lady, with surprisingly sharp observations about class differences and assumptions for the time it was written (1930s)
  • Oscar Wilde: De Profundis – I had read this before, but gained so much additional insight from the Backlisted episode with Stephen Fry as a guest, that I wanted to experience it once more.

Films

You can see that my older son came home twice during this period (for a week or so each time), because I watched quite a lot of films with him around. During his exams, he went on a bit of a Disney/Pixar binge, so we watched The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The Emperor’s New Groove and The Aristocats. We also watched films by directors that my son tends to admire: Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – I still don’t get the point of the Manson gang reference), Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch – the ultimate Anderson self-indulgence), Georges Franju (Eyes without a Face – creepy but not as atmospheric as M, for example), while I got to pick Almodovar (Volver) on my birthday. By myself, I watched the problematic but fun Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, the Shakespearean Iranian tragedy of Chess of the Wind, and the surprisingly minimalist Korean drama The Woman Who Ran.

I went to the cinema with a friend to watch Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, which made us laugh and feel good, and sigh over Daryl McCormack. It felt like a play for two people, and we agreed that Nancy (played so well by Emma Thompson) didn’t seem like the kind of person we would like as a friend in real life.

Literary Events

I attended two real-life events this month. First, the Oxford Translation Day at St Anne’s College, where I got to meet so many lovely translators, do a workshop with Jen Calleja whom I greatly admire, and hear translators talk about their translation motivation and practices. The publisher panel (represented by Heloise Press, Paper Republic and Praspar Press) made me feel better about the teething problems of Corylus – small, independent publishing of translated fiction is clearly a money-pit. As one of the panellists put it: ‘You pay for everything but you’re the last to see any money back, or everyone gets paid except for the publishers.’

The second live event was a play by a very talented young actor/writer/director from Romania (who is now living in the UK) Ioana Goga. The play was called Love (to) Bits and was performed at Baron’s Court Theatre, a small venue in the basement of the Curtains Up pub in West London. It is a highly relatable examination of love, what it is, what it could be, and where it often fails, played with aplomb and great gusto by the three young performers, Ioana Goga, Tomas Howser and Beatrice Bowden. Here is a thoughtful review of it and do check out the energetic talent of their company Eye Opening Productions.

I also ran two Romanian poetry translation workshops for the Stephen Spender Trust in a primary school in Slough – and absolutely loved working with the children. I had forgotten what fun it can be working with that age group (and how tiring).

Online, I attended a session on the recent publication of a comic book Madgermanes, about Mozambican workers who had previously been contracted out to East Germany. It was a conversation between Birgit Weyhe, a German comic book artist, and her translator and publisher Katy Derbyshire at V&Q Books.

The final events I attended were on Sunday 26th of June, two brief snippets from the ambitiously hybrid Kendal Poetry Festival – kudos to the organisers for offering both remote and in-person options, which I know from experience is double the work and the cost.

Books, Films, Events: Summary for May 2022

Quite a fun month of reading: 16 books, eight of them were in the ‘expats writing’ category, and three were preparatory reading for my French in June challenge. Two were for my book clubs (Good as Dead for the Virtual Crime Book Club, Love in the Big City for London Reads the World). The remaining three were just random fun reads from the library. I knew it was going to be a month with few books in other languages (only four, and all French), as the theme was Anglo expats.

So here are the links to the longer reviews and/or one line comments.

Can I draw any conclusions from this multitude of expat accounts? Virtually all of them had a distinctive tone – equal parts arch and blasé. This worked best when the authors or narrators showed an actual interest in the place and ‘the natives’, rather than use them merely as backdrop for personal drama. I can see how an external observer (supposedly impartial, although not always so) can bring a different perspective to things, but remain unconvinced that these stories might have been better told by the locals. The exceptions are Christopher Isherwood (who is ferocious about the expats and the English as well) and Kirsty Bell, although I did enjoy the fun Berlinski and Rush were having with dismantling dearly held anthropological beliefs and discourse.

I will be reviewing the three French books in June, so here are the rest of the bunch:

  • Susan Walter: Good as Dead – ethical dilemma, Hollywood ending, fun but forgettable
  • Joanna Cannon: A Tidy Ending – in-depth character study and great sleight of hand
  • Sang Young Park: Love in the Big City, transl. Anton Hur – raucous, energetic, poignant, sad, funny and sweet
  • Gillian McAllister: Wrong Time, Wrong Place – great initial idea, but such banal and bland prose
  • Emily Itami: Fault Lines – wasn’t sure about this at first, but now think it fits really well with one of my French books, so will review in tandem with that

Events

My social calendar is starting to fill up, although I try not to go more than once a week into London.

Exhibition Louise Bourgeois

Sixth anniversary of Royal Borough Writers, the writing group to which I belong – a real lifeline when I returned from Geneva, feeling bereft without a writing group; at first sceptical whether it would be entirely helpful, since I was the only one writing poetry or crime fiction, but it has been the most supportive and fun community, and has contributed significantly to my mental balance during lockdown, when we met online

Out of the Wings Theatre in Translation Spring Kindlings meeting – such a great community of translators and theatre fans, combining readings and discussions of what we would like to see in the future (hint: more festivals and communities of translated plays)

Society of Authors New Members lunch – so excited to meet poet Joelle Taylor, winner of the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, whom I had previously only known and admired via an online masterclass. Also got to meet Yvonne Bailey-Smith, whose book The Day I Fell Off My Island deserves to be known on its own merit, rather than by the fact that the author is Zadie Smith’s mother.

International Booker Shortlist Readings – it was a bit ambitious to have readings and a brief Q&A with all of the authors and translators in just 1.5 hours, some of them couldn’t make it so were on video, and I do wish the questions had been less obvious, more imaginative – nevertheless, it was wonderful to hear from them all, a really strong shortlist this year. I had already ordered the winner, but haven’t read it yet.

Pandemic Fiction – you can’t go wrong with the two Sarah queens of contemporary literature: Sarah Hall and Sarah Moss, plus I feel very close to Oana Aristide, with whom I share the Romanian and Greek connection (also, slightly, the Swedish one). Their ‘pandemic’ novels were all written at different stages of Covid. Oana had finished writing her novel and was editing (so incorporated some of the obsession with handwashing and disinfecting, which she hadn’t predicted). Sarah Hall started Burntcoat on the first day of the first lockdown, as a way of making sense of the whole situation and coping with uncertainty – filling in the gaps with fiction helped. Sarah Moss started hers in November 2020, when the initial sense of solidarity and helpfulness was falling apart. I especially loved the quote: ‘Readers or publishers tell us it is too soon for pandemic novels – but who’s going to tell us when it is time? Real life is a mess, there is not narrative structure to it, so fiction gives us maps to navigate the chaos and unfairness of it all.’

Films

Only seven films watched (online) this month, all rather living up to my reputation as a lover of grim, cheerless or brutal stuff (as one of my friends claims – she refuses to go to any more films with me unless she picks them). However, I think most of them also have that dark humour which really resonates with me (and which I hope I have in my writing). The only one I found so depressing that I couldn’t watch it to the end was Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st, but I thought his earlier Reprise was funny, satirical and knowing.

I watched no less than three films about enigmatic women – La Collectionneuse, Morvern Callar and Zero Fucks Given – well, enigmatic if you are a man trying to ‘explain’ these women or appropriate their thoughts and feelings. Haydee in the first of these films is simply a young woman out to enjoy herself and not giving a damn about anyone else’s opinion, but the two others are grieving in their own inimitable way. Virtuoso performances!

Le Weekend seemed to me more vicious than heartwarming, despite its ‘happy ending’, but I liked the Bande A Part references (might try to learn the dance myself). The last film was a pastiche of a genre mash-up of Gothic horror, erotica, Hitchcock thriller The Love Witch – profoundly silly but wonderfully cheering on a lonely evening.