April is Zoladdiction month with Fanda @ClassicLit! This year I am up to book five in the Rougon-Macquart series - La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret (1875) The Sin of Father Mouret. I will be reading the Oxford University Press edition translated by Valerie Minogue, the President of the Émile Zola Society in London. 'I really don't … Continue reading Zoladdiction 2021
An Indiscreet Journey was a short story written in 1915 by Katherine Mansfield but published posthumously in the 1924 collection, Something Childish and other stories by her husband John Middleton Murry. Initially it reads like a fairly straight forward story about a woman on a train journey to visit her aunt and uncle in the middle … Continue reading An Indiscreet Journey | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory
Je ne Parle pas Français, or I Do Not Speak French was written in early 1918 and published in Bliss and other stories (1920).There is a rather long and complicated story about the publication of this particular short story. It started life as a pamphlet published by Heron Press, which was run by John Middleton … Continue reading Je ne Parle pas Français | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory
Book Stop is an occasional meme that allows me to travel and indulge in a good bookshop browse, during these strange, strange times when we cannot travel outside our home state, let alone the country. I plan to combine my bookish instincts with my itchy feet and explore the world via bookshops. I have a … Continue reading Book Stop #2
Miss Brill is a short story by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920 and later included in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). I knew I wouldn't have the time or reading energy to tackle a novel published in 1920 for this week's 1920's Club with Kaggsy and … Continue reading Miss Brill | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club
Mirka & Georges: A Culinary Affair is a beautiful book and hard to define. Is it an art book? Is it a biography? Or is it a recipe book? I guess the subtitle that Harding & Morgan chose gives us a clue to their intentions - that food is the central idea around which the … Continue reading Mirka & Georges: A Culinary Affair by Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan
Maigret's Anger is my fifth Maigret. It was probably the lightest, easiest one of the lot so far, but it was also very atmospheric. Paris in summer hummed and sweated along in the background as Maigret worked a case around his old beat, in Montmartre.It was almost as hot that evening as it had been during … Continue reading Maigret’s Anger #61 by Georges Simenon
C'est reparti!As we bunker down for a long cold winter in Australia (okay a moderately cool and relatively short winter compared to the rest of the world, but hey, it's all relative), the one thing that can brighten our short, grey days is to dream of warmer climes.Tamara @Thyme for Tea has tapped into this … Continue reading Paris in July 2019
Le Ventre de Paris (also known as The Belly of Paris - a direct translation, or The Fat and the Thinreferring to one of the main ideas explored in the story) is not only an extremely visual story, but a visceral one too.Zola's descriptions of the food markets at Les Halles are colourful, very detailed … Continue reading The Belly of Paris by Émile Zola
A Maigret Christmas contains three very different stories by Georges Simenon - A Maigret Christmas, Seven Small Crosses in a Notebook and The Restaurant near Place des Ternes - yet they all share a similar sense of melancholy and loneliness.In Simenon's world, Christmas is not a time for goodwill and cheer, so seasonally well-adjusted readers beware! … Continue reading A Maigret Christmas by Georges Simenon
Also known as Signed Picpus or Maigret and the Fortune Teller, Signe Picpus was one of the three Maigret books that Simenon published in 1944. My 2015 edition was translated by David Coward.According to wikipedia, Simenon actually wrote Signe Picpus in 1941. It was serialised into 34 instalments between 11th of December 1941 and the … Continue reading Signe Picpus by Georges Simenon
I wanted to read The Lady and the Unicorn thanks to the exhibition currently on at the Art Gallery of NSW. As a long-time cross-stitcher, the tapestries fascinate me. I've been to see them twice so far, & hope to see them one more time before the exhibition ends later this month.This is only the … Continue reading The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
