Tokyo Express | Translated by Jesse Kirkwood On the evening of the thirteenth of January, Tatsuo Yasuda invited one of his clients to join him at the Koyuki restaurant in Akasaka. His guest was a senior official at one of the government ministries. I acquired a reading copy of Tokyo Express back in November. At … Continue reading Tokyo Express | Seichō Matsumoto #JPNcrimefiction
At the time the pigeon affair overtook him, unhinging his life from one day to the next, Jonathan Noel, already past fifty, could look back over a good twenty-year period of total uneventfulness and would never have expected anything of importance could ever overtake him again- other than death some day. What on earth do … Continue reading The Pigeon | Patrick Süskind #DEUnovella
Opening Lines: Early on Sunday, after first Mass in Clonegal, my father, instead of taking me home, drives deep into Wexford towards the coast where my mother's people came from. It is a hot day, bright, with patches of shade and greenish, sudden light along the road. Foster was the buddy read chosen by Cathy … Continue reading Foster | Claire Keegan #IRLnovella
The Jew's Beech | Annette von Droste-Hülshoff A Picture of Life among the Hills of Westphalia Where is the hand so fraught with gentle art That tangled skein of narrow mind may part, So steadfast that untrembling it may throw The stone upon a wretched creature's woe? Who dares to measure surge of vain ambition, … Continue reading The Jew’s Beech | Annette von Droste-Hülshoff #DEUnovella
Epigraph: Questo di fu solenne: or da' trastulli prendi riposo. Giacomo Leopardi | La sera del dì di festa The Evening of the Holiday (1820) | Giacomo Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) - full poem here. According to a variety of online poetry sites, Leopardi's idyll expresses his unhappiness thanks to an indifferent, distant woman plus a … Continue reading The Evening of the Holiday | Shirley Hazzard #AUSnovella
NovNov22 Cathy & Rebecca are once again hosting Novellas in November. This year I have read 12 novellas, with another three definites planned for November. I also hope to discover some new ones during this event. I have come to love novella time throughout the year, but especially during those moments in life when everything … Continue reading Novellas in November 2022
Opening Lines: The pool is located deep underground, in a large cavernous chamber many feet beneath the streets of out town. Some of us come here becasue we are injured, and need to heal. We suffer from bad backs, fallen arches, shattered dreams, broken hearts, anxiety, melncholia, anhedonia, the usual aboveground afflictions. For about a … Continue reading The Swimmers | Julie Otsuka #USAnovella
The 1929 Club 24-30 October 2022 The 1929 Club is being hosted by the very lovely Simon and Karen during the week of 24th - 30th October 2022. The idea is to read and review a book, novella, short story, or poem first published in 1929. Finding something from 1929 to read from my TBR … Continue reading Passing | Nella Larsen #1929Club
As I've been reading so many chunksters this year, novellas have proven to be the perfect inbetween palate cleansers. The current ones are both from 2022 and both new releases. One is from Australia and one is from Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid (on his website he says that he now spends his time between Lahore, … Continue reading #MiniReviews – the Novella edition
When I was nine years old I was a good little girl, though this hadn’t always been the case. Have you ever noticed that the books you really enjoyed reading - a lot - and would like to read again, are the ones you find the hardest to write something about? The Inseparables has been … Continue reading The Inseparables | Simone de Beauvoir #FRAfiction
As always when he returned home at night, Maigret paused at the same place, just past the gas lamp, and looked up at the lit windows of his apartment. Every July since 2017, there has been one rainy, cold, miserable weekend that becomes my Maigret weekend. This past weekend was it! There is nothing sweeter … Continue reading Maigret and the Minister | Georges Simenon #ParisinJuly
Some images you record unconsciously, with the precision of a camera, and when you find them later in your memory, sometimes you rack your brains to recall where you saw them. Maigret Goes to School is my ninth Maigret. I'm well and truly hooked! This story sees Maigret leave Paris to help out with a … Continue reading Maigret Goes to School | Georges Simenon #ParisinJuly
I had planned on writing extended reviews for some of these books, but Covid. Assembly especially, which packed a punch much weightier than its mere 100 pages would suggest, deserves to be more widely considered and discussed. But for now, all I will say is READ IT. You have to stop this, she said. This … Continue reading June Mini Reviews [2]
22/9/14 Monday morning Too early it's too early I hate morning classes I should not teach them. Lauren Elkin composed the diary entries in No. 91/92: A Parisian Bus Diary on her iPhone 5c from September 2014 to May 2015 as she was riding the bus to the university where she taught. It was a … Continue reading No. 91/92: A Parisian Bus Diary | Lauren Elkin
There was a time, and it was many years ago now, when I had to stay in hospital for almost nine weeks. When planning my summer holiday reading, I wanted a mix of books. I wanted short stories, I wanted some Australian authors, particularly Gen IV Australian Women Writers, I wanted a Japanese book, a … Continue reading My Name is Lucy Barton | Elizabeth Strout #USAfiction
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