That was the month that was July 2021

1. Ramifications by Daniel Saldaña París
2. Working Woman by Elvira Navarro
3. Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago
4. None so Blind by J A Gonzalez Sainz

This month I wasn’t on form a real reading slump so I only managed four reviews all month we started in Mexico with a young man looking back at the loss of his mother as he is sick in the same bed as his parents slept in. Then a flatshare happens or is it two women or one woman imaging a flatmate as her editing job shrinks down. Then Death takes a break from her job and all through everyone is happy at first the consequences of no deaths soon sinks in and a cellist then avoids the call of death Then a man moves to the basque region and sees his family drawn into the Basque problems in the 80s a quiet man’s life turns. So I managed three countries not any new publisher.

Book of the month

I hadn’t read Saramago for a decade and this reminded me what a talented writer he was and how he had lots of recurrent themes in his works such as religion, the Salazar regime, and dystopian worlds. It won’t be this long next time too I  read him.

Non-book events

I watched the Shane Meadows film Dead man’s shoes which I have watched a few times as a revenge thriller mostly set in Matlock as a brother returns to take revenge on the druggy gang that killed his disabled brother killing them one by one. It has him talking with his brother reliving what happened to him I like Meadows’s work as they are mostly set in place I know around Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. In the opposite to that was watching Terry Gillian’s dystopic film Brazil with Jonathan Pryce as a man caught up in a kafkaesque world of things going wrong after a mistake means the wrong man is arrested. But on the whole, It has been a quiet month otherwise really fairly hot for most of it.  we tidied our garden but have a bit more to do but now have a few days off to do some more work in it. This also saw the seventh anniversary of losing Winston, not a week goes by that I don’t miss him.

The month ahead well with the lack of reviews for the last month I have extended Spanish lit month and intend to review a few more books for there I have two already read ready for review and then I will also try a couple for Woman in translation month a couple will cross with Spanish lit month then I have review copies piling up. that I need to get to. So a busy month I hope. What plans have you for the next month?