Posted in Uncategorized on July 1, 2008 | No Comments »
The 1980’s was the decade in which Brian Moore’s reputation became firmly established. The Colour of Blood, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Sunday Express Prize, the Canadian Authors’ Association Prize and the Hughes prize. One of Moore’s thrillers, I came to it with high expectations, having loved both book and film of The Statement.
I [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on June 23, 2008 | No Comments »
Salley Vickers describes the approach made to her to contribute to the Canongate myths series as a gift. A trained Jungian psychoanalyst, her antipathy to Freud and his interpretation of the Oedipus myth meant her material was a given. However, in the course of writing and researching Freud, the man, she found him [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on June 15, 2008 | 8 Comments »
… is a common malady, particularly in my occupation - software design. I don’t suffer from it much too during out-of-office hours. Not even in the face of a TBR like the one on the left. That’s about 1/3 of it and even I’m beginning to think that too much of a good thing, while [...]
Posted in A-Z Shorter Fiction, german literature on May 24, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Heinrich von Kleist’s 1810 novella, Michael Kohlhaas, is one of the most important in German literature, building a bridge between the classic and modern traditions. Quite by chance it shares an uncanny thematic link with Boell’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, which I reviewed earlier this week.
The plot is based on the true story of [...]
Posted in thompson alice on May 23, 2008 | 3 Comments »
When her younger sister, Daphne, commits suicide, Iris Tennant successfully applies, under a pseudonym, for the job of personal assistant to Lord Melfort, the Under-Secretary of War. This takes her to his estate in the Scottish Highlands and to the place of her sister’s death, where she encounters a intricate net of sibling rivalry, sexual jealousy and political treachery.
Alice [...]
Posted in german literature, keun irmgard on May 17, 2008 | 1 Comment »
let me tell you, Herr Brenner, a woman should never wear artificial silk when she’s with a man. It wrinkles too quickly, and what are you going to look like after seven real kisses? Only pure silk, I say - and music - “
Mini-Germanathon Book 3 is Irmgard Keun’s one-time bestseller of 1932 - the [...]
Posted in Piñol Albert Sánchez, Uncategorized on May 8, 2008 | No Comments »
Courtesy of
Before I’d even started reading this 441 page chunkster, I knew I was going to enjoy it. The echoes of Tintin in the artwork providing a hint of the adventure to come, and the title, the Pandora’s box of nasties literary goodies.
The first chapter is one of the most entertaining I have read in many a novel. Set in pre-World-War-1 [...]
Posted in sunday salon on April 27, 2008 | 12 Comments »
The Booker may be 40 years old but I confess it only entered my consciousness in 1991 - a couple of years after I returned to British shores.
Booker-wise the 1990s started well with A.S.Byatt’s Possession - a book I have read twice and loved both times. Despite my disagreement with the author’s stance on the [...]
Posted in mcgrath patrick, tagged Add new tag on April 24, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The sight of the American book cover was enough to start me salivating in anticipation. And like a hungry child impatient for dinner, I had to snack. Fortunately snacking on McGrath’s Ghost Town - Tales of Manhattan Then and Now didn’t spoil my appetite for the main course, McGrath’s Trauma. In fact I devoured that [...]
Posted in sunday salon, tagged Add new tag on April 20, 2008 | 19 Comments »
I’m pinching this superb idea from Simon’s Stuck-in-a-Book and creating an alphabet of my current favourites.
A = Kate Atkinson (Anything except Human Croquet).
B = William Boyd (Slowly working my way through the backcatalogue. Here and here.)
C = Michael Collins, James M Cain
D = Roald Dahl (Because I refuse to grow up!)
E = Umberto Eco (The [...]
The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth 
Cleave - Anthology of Scottish Women's Writing
The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackberg 
