Translated from French by Melanie MauthnerPublished by Archipelago Press / Daunt Books, 2014, 240 pages. Original version published in 2012. Scholastique Mukasonga paints a picture of a country by focusing on the microcosm of a girls’ boarding school in Rwanda around 1980. Our Lady of the Nile is a secondary school for girls run by …
Continue reading Our Lady of the Nile: Scholastique Mukasonga
Translated from Italian by Ann GoldsteinPublished by Thorndike Press, 2016, 497 pages. Original version published in 2011. Elena Ferrante has become a literary sensation in the Anglophone world with The Neopolitan Quartet, books about a friendship between two women. The books not only chart the story of Elena and Lila’s friendship over several decades but …
An interesting article on the ongoing and seemingly endless debate on the merits of paper books and ebooks. Personally, I'm very much a paper book person and don't even own a Kindle. But I did enjoy this article on the joys of ebooks--and modern information technology--and thought I'd share it. "We’ve all heard it said that …
Continue reading The Intangibility of Books: The Digital Bibliophile, by Eric Burns-White
Published by Knopf / Longman, 1986, 350 pages.Review by Sadhana Ramchander The power a woman or an animal has when she is a mother—this is the idea that is central to Fiela's Child. It also asks the question—is identity, which people give utmost importance to—an abstract thing after all? It is a gripping story, set …
Published by Aleph Book Company, 2012, 235 pages. Both books I’ve read this month—Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom—have been excellent. And the year has only just begun! Em and the Big Hoom is a moving, funny account of living with a mentally ill, suicidal mother—Em of the …
Published by Grove Press / Vintage, 2014, 320 pages. A hawk stares out from the cover of this book: it is hard to turn away from the fierce intensity of its gaze. And intense, too, is how I would describe this book, which is about grief, trauma and the relationship between humans and goshawks. When …
Published by Quercus Publishing / Silver Oak, 2011, 528 pages. Peter May has written an atmospheric and intricately plotted novel set on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The Blackhouse is a police procedural and a story about a man forced to come to terms with his past. Fin McLeod is …
Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008, 240 pages. “I had imagined that my life story, if and when I wrote it, would have a great first line.” These are the words of a voracious reader, a hopeless romantic in love with Ginger Rogers—and a rat. Firmin is born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a …
Continue reading Firmin—The Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife: Sam Savage
Published by Picador, 2015, 60 pages. These are poems written by a man who is sick and dying. But, surprisingly, this is not a depressing book. Clive James—a writer, critic, broadcaster and more—looks at his life and imminent death with honesty, clarity and a sense of humour. As he says in the acknowledgements, “you can …
This article by Gail Rebuck is really preaching to the converted as far as this blog is concerned—if you're reading this, then you do not need to be told that reading is not only a pleasure but it's also good for you. But it made some important points, and I thought it was worth sharing. …
Continue reading Humans Have the Need to Read: Gail Rebuck (from the Guardian)
Talking About Books 