The Month that was June (2011)

Just in case you missed it, it was Dutch Literature Month, and after telling a few stories about my Dutch learning past, I got stuck into a pile of Dutch books. (Hyperlinks are to my reviews.) 1) Tomorrow Pamplona – Jan Van Mersbergen  plus a one question interview. 2) The Tea Lords – Hella S Haasse [...]

Read Full Post »

Literary Blog Hop – The Winners Are …

Well, thank you everyone for entering and to those who have begun following me, I hope you stay a while.  I look forward to chatting wth you in the future. I posted on twitter that I would give away all four books if there were 100 entries.  I count 98 - that’s near enough, isn’t it?  [...]

Read Full Post »

The Assault – Harry Mulisch

Name the great trio of post-war Dutch authors.  W F Hermans, I adore.  Gerhard van het Reve, I’ve never read.  Harry Mulisch, I’ve now discovered.  Firstly that picture of a real assassination on the cover. Dutch policeman Fake Krist was shot by the Dutch resistance on October 25,1944.  The body left lying in the gutter to rot shows the contempt felt in Holland for Nazi [...]

Read Full Post »

The Literary Blog Hop June 2011: Take Your Pick

The Literary Blog Hop is organised by the indefatiguable Leeswammes who has set the following ground rules.  If you’re giving away a book, it must have some literary merit. It does not have to be the most difficult classic ever, but no romance, supernatural or urban fiction or YA. Non-fiction and poetry are also fine, as are standard [...]

Read Full Post »

The Foxes Come At Night: Cees Nooteboom at World Literature Weekend 2011

Let me say at the start that I have mixed feelings about this book.   It’s nothing to do with the writing or the subject matter: absence, death, grief and loss.  My quibble is with me - my heart understands the sentiments only too well.  And my head, firmly in denial, insists that I’m still far too young for all that. Obviously [...]

Read Full Post »

55 Hours in London: Part One

The last weekend in London was so packed and interesting that I have enough material to feed this blog for a couple of  months.  However, instead of doing that (and boring you to death), I’m going to condense my notes, emphasising one or two particular highlights into separate posts.  Even so, I think it’s going to take [...]

Read Full Post »

World Literature Weekend – here I come!

The London Review of  Books World Literature Weekend is happening Friday-Sunday this weekend.  The program is here and if you’re a lover of world literature and in London, there is only one place to be.  OK maybe two:  The British Museum and the London Review of Books Book/Cakeshop. I’m making my way there right now [...]

Read Full Post »

Tomorrow Pamplona Blog Tour – 3rd Gig

Jan Van Mersbergen (Picture by Fleur Speet)   Jan Van Mersbergen is on a blog tour.  Each blogger was allowed to ask one burning question.    Here’s mine.   When the big reveal about Danny’s past is made, I felt suitably horrified.  No doubt I would have behaved exactly as Robert’s wife and with an ice [...]

Read Full Post »

The Tea Lords – Hella S Haasse

A common theme in Dutch literature is its colonial past in Indonesia.  There are 3  books in my Dutch TBR dealing with it.  In additional to The Tea Lords, I have Couperus’s The Hidden Force and Multatuli’s seminal Max Havelaar (recently reviewed by Iris On Books).  I decided that it would be interesting to read these in reverse [...]

Read Full Post »

Tomorrow Pamplona – Jan van Mersbergen

Peirene #5 is one which I picked up solely because it is a Peirene.  I’ve read and enjoyed 1-4 to a greater or less degree and I’m going to continue to read everything the nymph publishes because a) I am a completist, b) I love novellas and c) Peirene hasn’t published the same book twice. That said a book about boxing, bull [...]

Read Full Post »