TSS: Banging on The New Tin Drum – Part 2

Book Two and now the “fun” – if that’s the right word for it – really begins.  Highlights on almost every page.  Book One ended with Kristallnacht and Book Two starts with the Siege of the Polish Post Office, one of the first battles in the Nazi invasion of Poland.   It ends with the Russian Invasion [...]

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A Collaborative Interview with Kader Abdolah (Author of The House of the Mosque)

Here we are at last. My thanks to Canongate for supplying copies of the book,  to bloggers Rob from Robaroundbooks and Simon from Savidgereads and to literary translator, Eric Dickens, for supplying some great interview questions.  And finally many, many thanks Kader Abdolah for such a thought-provoking book and taking the time to answer all this in English. [...]

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The House of the Mosque – Kader Abdolah

I’ve been promising to read some Dutch literature for a while.  I would never have guessed that a refugee Iranian author, writing in Dutch would get me started!  Another key fact  is that  a public vote in 2007 declared The House on the Mosque to be the second best Dutch novel ever!  Not bad considering it was only published in [...]

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The Rapture – Liz Jensen

I have a number of books that I keep to lend to friends when they ask me for a good read. Liz Jensen’s The Ninth Life of Louis Drax is one such.  I’m surprised to find that I haven’t reviewed it here but I obviously read it pre-blog.  In any case it’s a unique and bold piece of [...]

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Family Romance – John Lanchester

I came across this memoir during the blackout at last year’s Edinburgh Book Festival.  I couldn’t see John Lanchester but I heard enough of his melodious voice to know that I wanted more of his family memoir.  So when I found the unabridged audio read by the author himself on the library shelves, it was [...]

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Book Group: Poor Mercy – Jonathan Falla

What makes for a good book group read? Plot, character, literariness, something that allows for off-book discussion?  In that case Poor Mercy ticks the boxes. In 1991 Jonathan Falla was employed by a British charitable agency in Darfur.  It was not a satisfying experience.  Good intentions are not enough.  After leaving charitable work, Falla spent the next decade [...]

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TSS: A conundrum ….

Three weeks ago or thereabouts the normblog posed this question: You are going to some distant and lonely and low-tech place where you will have to spend the rest of your days, and you can: – (a) either take 100 books you have already read and which you may then re-read without limit, those being [...]

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Kader Abdolah – Q&A – Your questions please

Kader Abdolah, author of The House of the Mosque,  has agreed to an author interview.  The date is set for 24.02.2010. I hope that all those who won copies in the giveaway a couple of weeks ago are avidly reading and have lots of questions because I want this Q&A to be a collaborative effort.  [...]

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January Sales, Other Excuses and Eager Anticipations for February

 I missed the UK Borders closing down sale.  90% off – would I have been able to carry my purchases home?  So I decided that I was allowed to capitalise on the January sales.  Now before I show you my plunder, you need to know that it could have been so much worse.  I added another 36 titles to my [...]

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