My thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for a review copy of this book. Tumultuous is perhaps one word we might use to describe the world around us today, and one face of this is the citizens’ protests we are witnessing in numerous countries—West or East, ‘developed’ or ‘developing’. Looking at these protests, against,…
Shelf Control #190: Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks
Wednesday, the 29th of June, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it--what…
Shelf Control #189: Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Emuska Orczy
Wednesday, the15th of June, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it--what its…
Book Review: Of Sunshine and Bedbugs by Isaac Babel and translated by Boris Dralyuk
My thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for a review copy of this book. Isaac Babel (1894–1940) was not an author I knew or had come across earlier but when this volume of Essential Stories appeared from Pushkin Press, I decided to (somewhat blindly) give it a try. Babel was an author, journalist, and translator…
Book Review: A Thing with Feathers by J John Nordstrom
My thanks to Booktasters for a review copy of this book. A Thing with Feathers is a story with many themes; at its heart a story about a man’s search for his ‘soulmate’, it is set in the background of politics, corruption, greed and power which seem to have replaced any compassion, care or finer…
Book Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder
The Housekeeper and the Professor is a beautiful and poignant story of maths and numbers, of baseball, but most of all of a deep bond of friendship and affection formed between three unlikely but in their own ways lonely souls—a mathematics professor who retains old memories and has a good brain but is unable to…
Shelf Control #188: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Wednesday, the 8th of June, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it--what…
Book Review: Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo and translated by Louise Heal Kawai
My thanks to Pushkin Press and Edelweiss for a review copy of this book. Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo, first published in 1971 is the fourth of Yokomizo’s mysteries to be published in translation by Pushkin Press under their Pushkin Vertigo imprint, from the series featuring his detective Kindaichi Kosuke, which has 77…
Six Degrees of Separation: From Sorrow and Bliss to The Princess and the Goblin
Six Degrees of Separation is a fun meme hosted by Kate at Books are my Favourite and Best. The meme involves a common 'starter' book selected by Kate every month, and participants create their own unique chains of six books from this with each book having to only connect up to the next one. I've…
Book Review: A Taste for Killing by Sarah Hawkswood
My thanks to Allison & Busby and NetGalley for a review copy of this book. A Taste for Killing is Book 10 in the Bradecote and Catchpoll series of medieval mysteries by Sarah Hawkswood, and the second book that I read in this series, having come across it and enjoyed book 9 very much last…
Literary Potpourri 