That was the month that was January 2021

1. The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
2. Love in the big city by Sang Young Park 
3. The evening by Gerald Reve
4. The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
5. Painting the time by Mayliss De kerangal
6. What I talk about when I talk about Running by Haruki Murakami 
7. People from the Nieghbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami
8. Winter Flowers, by Angélique Villeneuve
9. The Guest cat by Takashi Hiraide
10. Geography of Adultery by Agnes Riva
11. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
12. Born of no women by Franck Bouysse
13. Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald 
14. Men without women by Haruki Murakami
15. One in me I never loved by Carla Guelfenbein
16. The Land of Short sentences by Stine Pilgaard

Now I had decided to record the books I have read every month and the reviews for this first month I am taking the list of read books and reviews done I will next month onwards do two separate lists of books firstly books read that month which will be from the 17 books read on the list and another list of books reviewed that month this list started five days before the new year. I had a plan in mind for Reading The books of Jacob twice so I need to read a lot of books so I had books to review whilst I could afford the luxury of a second read Olga Tokarczuk masterpiece. Anyway, I reviewed nine books this month and read a further seven on top of that which I will get to next month. There is a strong Japanese feel with four books from Japan Two from Haruki Murakami one a reread his running memoir and then his short story collection reminded me that it had been to long since I had read and reviewed him here on Winstonsdad! Then I had a flash fiction collection surreal in Nature and a cat visiting a couple. Then A novel from Korea about a young man growing up and moving to a big city and his relationships, The we had a stop in Norway with the great Tarjei Veraas and The Ice palace a tale of what happened when two young girls got to close and the aftermath of one evening. Then a pair of french novel the return of a Husband bad disfigured in the World war one shone a light on a little written part of social history the return of the Huband after the war what happened next we see the war and recovery but not the homelife so well cut open like this and that is a clever nod to the earlier novel of Mayliss De Kerangel a book that featured surgery but in her latest book it follows three friends and what happens when your work and dreams split for men the heart of the book is what is a crafts person and what is an artist or is there a divide making great scenes is such a talent ! Then I finally took flight with a collection of Nature Essays.

Plans and places –

I am planning to review at least 100 books this year I am on to do that with 9 reviews this month I do plan to read 120 books plus this year and if you follow me on good reads I have 12 books in 2021 it’s self I already was reading the other four books finished this year. There was no new publishers this month and no new countries.

Book of the Month(well two)

First of two books this month it was hard to pull apart the best book for this month as I had read so many great books passed through my hands but this tale of three friends from the college days and when they start work a tale of what it is to maybe lose that dream I love this I  really hope it makes the Man booker.

Great writers are few and far between The Ice palace maybe the best-known book by Tarjei Vesaas shows what happens when we cross a line even thou Unn and Siss did the fall out can be very hard this is one of those books that follows a single event and then what happened and is so well set and written.

Next month Plans –

I am trying to be a lot more organized hence me pre-reading books ready for this month also I have some annual leave due and know I can fit a couple more reviews in this month. I plan to review the two epics I have read this year The book of Jacob will be towards the end of Feb and The tomb of sand in the middle. I plan to review a couple of Books from Thomas Bernhard for the second Thomas Bernhard week. I also have the last novel from a great writer and then I don’t know this year I want to widen the scope of books  I am reading so non-fiction and a couple more books, not in translation not many but I feel a change is good and with plans, I have in mind for blog and more later in the year I want to open up my reading to a few different books than I have been.

Non book events-

I’ll start with Call the midwife is back on tv as it is every year this time and it is one of the few shows that Amanda and I really enjoy it. I also Have tried to capture a few more podcasts,s especially Radio fours. Front row either live or if I missed it listen back. I also love The Mookse and the Gripes I love the banter between Trevor and Paul after I lost winston I had dropped off in my Podcast listening to so many so any I may have missed in the last few years I would enjoy a point in the direction off so new podcasts or old ones I may have missed. Also Vlogs I am just getting converted to Vlogs book ones of course but also cottagecore and productivity idea-based ones which have helped me try and get a little more organized I am so disorganised. How were your months reading this January?

Vesper flights by Helen Macdonald

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

Nature writing

Source – Personal copy

I said to myself at the start of this year I need to add a couple of non-fiction books here and there which is something in all the time I have blogged has been thin on the ground I always see other Bloggers and Vloggers mention different non-fiction books and think I should read some of the books they have mentioned and I have always been a fan of nature writing but had only reviewed one book a year in the woods in my time blogging I had read a couple of other books A roger Deakin being one but not reviewed any of them anyway the second book from Helen Macdonald I brought last year when we visited were we scattered my mum’s ashes in Cheshire (which is an odd connection given the cover could be Jodrell Bank the radio telescope that dominates The area of Cheshire I grew up so the Linocut cover caught my eye). So I brought it last summer and the other memory of that day was a squirrel that was so tame it stood a mere couple of feet away as I place some flowers near when we scattered my mum’s ashes.

This creature was not what I expected, despite its slap of familiarity. It had the forward-meancing shoulder of a Baboon and the brute strtength and black hide of a bear. But it was not really anything like a bear, and what surprised me most of all was that it was nothing like a pig. As the beast trotted up to us, a miracle pf muscle and bristle and heft, I turned to the boy, and said, surprised, “It’s nothing like a pig!” With great satisfactionhe grinned and sad “No they’re really not.”

The meeting of a wild boar in the woods when it was reintroduced to the UK

 

I was immediately grabbed by her writing when Helen Macdonald talked of this collection as being like a Wunderkammern ( a box of curiosities ) this collection of Nature writing. that we get insight into how she first wanted to be a naturist the opening story talks of Nest and egg collection which Naturists used to do in the past but now seems so out date to the modern Naturist. I was reminded of Gald Durrel and his Amateur Naturalist series and book I loved when I was younger the way he collect things like Nest and eggs. Then we see how the reintroduction of Wild Boars makes walking in the wood different these days !! ( this also remind me of the film Beast of the southern wilds which had a recurring motif of an ancient giant Boar running ). An essay that touched me was her connection with a boy that Autism a touching tale of when they met. Then a tale of old Field guides which mention an old guide written about seeing birds through your opera glasses Elsewhere we see the effects of building on birds and An essay about Ants. Hares are the subject of another essay I was reminded of Moring in  Northumberland where I see the Rabbits and hares out in force near Alnwick Castle in the fields around as I walked my first dog.

The process of indentifying aniumals in this way has a fascinating history, for field guides have closely tracked changes in the ways we interact with nature. Untilthe earlyyear of the twentieth century, bird guides, for example, mostly came in two kinds. Some moralised, anthropomphic life hiostories, like Florence merra’s 1889 Birds through an opera-glass, which describes the bluebirdas having a “model temper” while the catbird possessed a “lazy self indulgence”. “If he were a man,” she wrote of the latter “you feel confident that he would sit in short sleeves at home and go oin the street wthout a collar.” The other kind was the technical volume for ornithological collectors.

Old field guide this made me smile with the description of  the old guide looking through Opera glasses.

I think you can guess from my description how much I loved this book I love books that make you think of your own experiences and I have always loved Nature I used to love walking in the Northumberland countryside and now these days in the Peaks I think it was Durrell’s book that opens my eyes and that is the beauty of a book like this is that it reminds you to appreciate the world around us and it also reminds us how fragile the world around is us is and how much effect we can have on the world around us. If you like nature writing I would say pick this up it left me wanting to read more from Helen Macdonald and also wanting to go out and observe the world around us again afresh. Have any of you read her Memoir H is for Hawk?

Winstons score – +A, A gem and uplifting read for a dull January day !!

Men without Women By Haruki Murakami

Men without women by Haruki Murakami

Japanese short stories

Original title – 女のいない男たち

Translators- Philip Gabriel and Ted Goosen

Source – Personal copy

I reviewed a non-fiction book By Mjurakami earlier this month and decided it was time to read this as since I was gift this book there has been another short story collection come out which I must get. I got this as a leaving gift for my last job which was nearly five years ago. I hadn’t plan to read ot but one afternoon after finishing one book and looking around my Library I decided it was time to get to this as it had been seven years before that when I had last reviewed a book by him so I felt a short gap was needed anyway he has always been a favourite and yes the last couple of novels hadn’t quite lived up to what I had wanted from Murakami there is always a feeling he has that true Opus Magnus to write still that defining book maybe that is just my view of him he is a great writer but would love that epic book he has yet to write that I’m sure he has in him, anyone else feels this about him? Anyway, let’s get to this collection of seven stories by him.

The first time I heard Kitaru sing “Yesterday” with those crazy lyrics he was in the bath at his house in Denenchofu (which, despite his description, was not a shabby house in ashabby neighbourhood but an ordinary house in an ordinary neighbourhood, an older house, but bigger than my house in Ashiya, not stand out in any way – and, incidentally , the car in the driveway was a navy-blue Golf, a recent model). Whenever Kitaru came home.he immediately dropped everything and jumped in the bat, and , once he was in the tub, he stayed there forever.

I was rtemind of the bath her of Douglas Adams love of Baths somethig that cfrept into his fiction I wonder if Murakami is the same!!

The collection opens with the tale of Kafuku in the story Drive my car he is an actor that has lost his license show hires a young woman to be his chauffeur in her mid-twenties to drive him around as she does he start to unload his life his wife that had affairs. A typical Murakami character is the lonely man older but so is the writer a world-weary soul with more life lived and ahead ! Then  Yesterday is a story about a trio of restaurant workers Tanimura and then a couple Kitaru and Erika the two split in the story just because he isn’t paying the attention she wants and she has then gone on a date with another man. He then moves on just a few days after this event.the story then jumps year later and Tanimura bumps into Erika now in the thirties she is married she asks Erika about the man she dated she hadn’t slept with him but still sees Kitaru and both are single and now lives apart the title is a hook on the Beatles song that is misunderstood and sung by Kitaru this reminds me of a friend many years ago that had misunderstood the meaning of a song by U2. I will just mention one more story leave the rest for you readers that haven’t read the book to discover the last story is Kino a middle-aged man who opens a bar called Kino’s his name the only name he could think of encouraged to open the bar this after his wife cheats a recurring motif in some of these stories. He has few customers one may be a Yakuza he sees of some wrong customers Kino also meets a woman also scared by her own life they talk Jazz. For me, this was classic Murakami a bar Jazz hark right back to his first two books dark alleys and men with no future all traits in his works over the years, The story also has a few surreal moments  when events in the bar change another of his traits.

kino couldn’t remember now what had led him to sleep with the woman that night. Kino felt, from the first, that there was something out of the ordinary about her. Something had triggered an instinctive response, warning him not to get involved. ANd now this cigarette burns on her back, He was basically a cautious person. If he really needed to sleep with a woman, he could always make do with a professional, he felt. Just take care of things by paying for it, And it wasn’t as it he were even attracted to this woman.

Kino sleep with this woman but why ? are they just two damaged souls ?

 

Do you ever get that feeling when you read a book that had been on your shelves for years why did I wait so long and wish you would have got to it sooner? I had like the other collections I had read by him other the years for me this has a lot of his traits cheating wives, single men now aging like the writer himself. This is like the Espresso shot of his work a little Amuse Bouche of the writer you hit with every story of echoes reminds of his earlier works he is a writer that uses similar characters and always has he use a sort every man of Japan how many of the male characters in this book are there wandering around Tokyo middle single men either single for a long time or widowed separate. Also things like Jazz, late-night bars western music all motifs that have cropped up before. The first story Drive my car has been made into a film I hope I can see it sometime? Have you read this collection what were your thoughts about it?

Winstons Score – A , well worth the journey for any fan or anyone maybe wanting an into to him this has so many of his traits in this collection in small chunks!

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

Japanese fiction

Original title –  猫の客

Translator – Eric Selland

Source – personal copy

I now head back to Japan for the third book for this years January inJapan event and I decided to look at my TBR pile of books and one I had brought just because I liked the Cat on the cover I worried the book was going to be one that I wouldn’t enjoy but I decided as I had just brought another Japanese bestseller about a cat it was time to read this cat book. The book was written by the Japanese Poet Takashi Hirade he was born in Moji and lives in Tokyo with his wife who is also a poet. He was described by Kenzaburo Oe as a poet who creates new prose from poetry. He has published over twenty books and edited a series of books in Japan.

Another one pf Chibi’s characteristics was that she changed the direction of her cautious attention frequently. This active behaviour wasn’t limited to her kittenhood. Perhaps because she played alone most of the time in the expansive garden, seh reacted strongly to insects and reptiles. And there were times when I could only conclude that she must be reacting to subtle changes in the wind and light, not detectable by humans. It may be that most cats share the same quickness, but even so, in Chibi’s case, it was acute – she was after all, the cat of Lightning Alley. My wife got into the habit of pointing to the cat whenever it went by, extolling its virtues.

Early on in his time with the couple.

The book in some ways is autobiographical to the writer’s own life as he was a writer. The story follows a couple in the mid-thirties in the mid-1980s as they move into a small house that is part of a larger estate within the grounds just of an alley in a quieter part of Tokyo. When they rent they are told early on that they can have no children or pets. They are a writer and proofreader so spend their days at home. So when a cat appears a white cat with patches of brown(I thought of my parent’s cat truffles she was pure white but in that coat, you could see what was a tabby pattern in white anyway back to the book) The cat they invite in as a guest to there home and Call him Chibi’s and his independent nature and his skill when he plays with a ping pong ball. He initially bits the wife but she gets to like him. The cat gives this couple that is in the same house but may be caught up in themselves something to focus on. The cat comes and goes as we view them interacting with him and what he meant to them as they see the world starting to change due to events around them.

We made a door to the rooom that only Chibi could get through, not any other cats.Below the lagrge window on the south wall, there was a floor-level window of frosted glass about sixteen inches tall running the full length of ones above it, for sweeping out dust. By opening this window just three inches , a gap was leftnwhich allowed only Chibi to squeeze through. In order to prevent cold air and insects from getting in, we hung a thick cotton curtain of royal blue over it.

On the wooden floorbardfs in a corner of the Japanese style room, we placed a cardboard box, which had orginally contained mandarin oranges, to act as Chibi’s own special room. we put a  towel in the box and a dish for her food. Then we set a bowl for milk beside  the box.

They make him feel welcome as their guest with his own door and box !!

This is one of those gentle books that are a pleasure to sit and read at its heart is maybe the loneliness of city life even a couple can be a part in the same small cottage til Chibi’s appearance. Also, another thread in the book is the garden is so well described with the bird’s trees etc described the garden is almost like an oasis in the city. This is like those films I love and Myamanda happens and that is where nothing happens but the world we see and are drawn into is the beauty of the journey. The time in their house gives them a breathing gap in the chaotic world of Tokyo this oasis and that stray white cat that has come into their lives is may be a way for them to move on in their own lives anyway that is what I felt this is one of those books that was a bestseller because it is one of those books that grab the imagination of the reader and gives you a couple of hours in the company of a couple and their guest cats. Have you read this book or any of his other books?

Winstons scores – B The tale of a cat that likes to visit families as a guest.

Winter Flowers by Angélique Villeneuve

Winter Flowers by Angélique Villeneuve

French fiction

Original title – Les Fleurs d’hiver

Translator – Adriana Hunter

Source – personal copy

I move on in the books I think maybe around the Booker international longlist when it comes out and to an old favourite publisher Peirene and the second book from their series of books for 2021. Angélique Villeneuve was born in Paris and has lived in Idia and Sweden before she returned to France and became a writer she has written books for both Adults and Children. known for how she portrays the lives of women challenged by events in her life in one of her most recent books. I was looking forward to this book as it struck me it could almost be a companion book to another french book I read many years ago pre-blog day but had a lasting Impression and that was Marc Dugain’s The officer’s ward which follows a soldier that was in a ward like the husband of our main character in this book as he recovered and had facial reconstruction. This book is also like the famous book The return of the Soldier by Rebecca West also follows what happened when the soldier involved in the great war returned to their home.

At first Jeanne stays rooted to her chair, entirely consumed with watching him and avoiding him.She knows what should see, through, where she should look, but bounces about, slips away from her. What she does grasp is that hes taller and handsome in his unifor, and unfanilar too.

She  doesn’t think,He’s here, she thins, it’s here. This unknown thing thart’s coming home to her. That she’s dreaded, and longed for. It’s here. It’s going to come in, it’s going to make its life with her, and with Leo too, it will come here, into this room that the two of them have shared so little since they left Belleville

On his return you can just see the way the tension comes into her thoughts of his reutrn!!

What happens when a family is reunited after the war Toussaint left his wife and then returns to their small apartment after two years away. who has worked as a seamstress through his time away to make money now has to try and make a life with a man that isn’t the man that left not just the effects of the war he has since then spent time in the Val de grace hospital having his face rebuilt but he no way looks like the man that left them two years ago.  Now home unable to talk the dynamics of the home has changed Jeanne and Leonie have struggled and become very close so when Toussaint returns this man his daughter has no idea who he is and Jeane has done what many of the women left behind in both wars and that forms her own circle of friends. mainly woman around her but has you feel grown as a person in the absence of Toussaint who is maybe now a burden on her as she is now in the traditionally male role of the time as the breadwinner for the family. What will happen will the two ever be able to reconnect and build a new life. How much more of recovery will he make? All this in a time when support for things like this happening was rather thin on the ground?

Tousaint introduces something new. not just within the walls of the small fourth-floor room, but also into Jeanne’s life and, to a lesser extent, into Leo’s ; silence.

For the first few days, curled ina foteal posistion under the eiderdown or sitting in the armchair with his head lolling forwardm he sleeps a great deal, although it’s not clear whether he’s boundlessly tired or if this withdraw; is in fact to eradicate his whole body.

The mother and daughter whisper around him, in the narrow spaves requished to them by this silence.

Toussaint is a home but still a burden it seems and there is a sense of unease around him !

As you may tell from my description of this book I loved it I have always been a fan of the books the Peirene choose every year they seem to pick three great books and that is maybe why three gives them chance to find gems around a loose theme. For me this book sits with other great books about war Little woman for example this is one little woman but it follows what happened after. the connection to The officer ward really struck me as almost a follow on to that book that followed soldiers in world war hospital also having facial surgery. The fear in Jeanne at his return is clear both the fact they have got used to him not being there but also the man that returns isn’t the same one! Also at the heart of the is the hardships of the war on those involved struggling to get by and keep themselves going. It is another gem from Peirene a glimpse into one family and through them, there is a wider story of the families during world war I. Have you read this book? Do you have a favourite book about world war One?

Winstons score – A a well written and translated story of three lives changed by war

#ProjectSolenoid lets get ready !!

I am starting a project around the forthcoming Publication of the first English translation of Solenoid.I felt as though as a reader it was above me but then I decide why was that the case?  I have read 1100 translations over the last twelve years  of winstonsdad have many people read many more?  I often belittle my knowledge as often it isn’t that I haven’t the knowledge of books etc. I am not able to often make connections etc this is mainly due to time as most reviews I write in an Hour as I hate loss reading time, But Now the time is to maybe turn this around and this is why I am starting Project Solenoid if you like me have felt that people are discussing a book and you feel as thou it is above you why? I used to feel this about Uylsess a book I have read umpteen times but over the year I pushed and pushed reread the book listen to podcasts read lots of books about Ulysses and Joyce’s world. This is a book that is very similar to  Joyce’s work so let’s break it up to little bits and build a base to start are reading from if we have read books abut the time, influencers on his writing, films from Romania etc let’s get to the heart of  Solenoid and lets discover ourselves !!  I have read 8 books from Romania more than most, in fact, I have read a lot of Eastern European fiction  This is a book from the Romanian writer Mircea  Cărtărescu a name that is often on the list of potential Nobel winners he has had a number of books translated I have already read one by him Why we love woman. A lesser work but to me, it seemed a great intro. Now there is a great post about the book from The Untranslated here. I am wanting to start a simpler guide to the book before we read it or even just I read it what I have in mind is using this post and any interviews I can find  I have this one so far from Music and Literature Here where we see him mention a number of Books to build a reading list of books that could be read before the English translation comes out. So where to start I decided that maybe the history of Romania at the time be worth it reading so I found this to start Paul Kenyon history book came out a while ago I have ordered this to read from the Library.

I have also ordered books that were mentioned by E M Cioran and Thomas Ligeti . Also The Gadfly by Ethel Lilian Voynich I am now reading which is mentioned in the book and meant to be a book widely read in Eastern Europe at the time. There is also a mention of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann which I did read years ago but will be reading and reviewing here. He also mentioned Giacomo Leopardi I have read most of Zibaldone when it came out great work and I’d be interested to read some of it again and see how it inspired Cărtărescu and see if it is an influence on the book.

I can also link in with Thomas Bernhard reading week as he said in the Interview this was a writer he like.I then look at the cinema and have discovered there was a new wave of films after the  Ceaușescu years as ever there is a Wiki page here about the films made. I have ordered a DVD of The Death of Mr. Lazarescuand on Mubi the is a recent film from Romania THe happiest girl in the world. 

What I am thinking is just starting a discussion before I get my book when it comes out later this year I am not after a copy of the book this is just about wanting readers like me that maybe read a lot but often feel as though a book is maybe above you as a reader as if  !! I want to promote reading a challenging book I want to show we can all understand and build the knowledge to open a book I did the same years ago with Joyce and have sat back and just done my quick-fire reviews mainly due to time and ofter just it is a habit quick easy template and boom it is done it is that easy and often that is all I can do after a couple long day but this is to work toward longer reviews that open books to other readers bit by bit which is something I feel I can do to help other readers which I am sure there is many that worry lets do it together lets start our Project solenoid !! What would you add I have started a good reads group here.  MY next stop in regards Cărtărescu’s  is Nostalgia next month. I am reading Gladfly at the moment come in join in add books to the GoodReads thread etc (I am no expert at these groups at Goodreads this is my first group ) I hope people join in and let’s get a great book to a wider public not just a few!

 

Stu’s first post covoid library trip and lets do Bernhard week 22 next month

SO much for a break a couple of hours and it is like an itch to blog these days I am not in the mood to review as I just write muy reviews then and there it is hard to think sometimes with a fuzzy head as I have just done a set of night shifts for my job is stressful at times as although we have few patients the patients we have are in real need of help care and our patience which is very draining but compared to people on covoid wards etc it is a lot less drain and hard. Anyway enough of me moaning anyway I had intended to do this post when I got the books last week from the Library. As many of you fans of this blog may know I used to use my Library a lot as Chesterfield is one of the Libraries with the Highest loan rates in the Country it is often in the top 20 busiest in the Country. But I haven’t been one of those inj the last twelve months I am a lover of shelf browsing looking for books I may have missed or just not been able to afford to buy. So the main time I order books in is Booker international Long list time which is growing close again for another year. Anyway, I had tried ordering a book and found I couldn’t I first thought I had an unpaid fine but didn’t just need to tell them I am still living where I am which I am. SO I had a look around and found some real gems  even thou I had one book on my shelves lol anyone done that themselves?

Anyway, after a quick look I didn’t even go through all the fiction books I had six books which seemed enough to me I may not get to them all but I hope to try and read a few I have already read one of the books here. SO let’s see the others I got to read.

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen, Yes I am a fan of his and I have this last year or so been buying a number of music Biographies and related books Bruce is a singer I have always loved from being in my early teens. I read a couple of music biographies a year but never mention them but I may start to mention them more as I have a lot to read I’ve brought but mainly around music I grew up with Factory records and The Fall but this is from Bruce caught my eye. Have you read this book ? do you have a favourite music related book ?

I jump from the biggest of the books to the smallest of the books and the one I have reviewed. People from the Neighbourhood by Kawakami you can go back and read my review of this collection of Microfiction. already a favourite of this year.

Oh, a blurred pic but this is The Moustache by Emmanuel Carrere A man shave his moustache after asking his wife she said she wouldn’t recognize him but then seems to blank it when he shaves it I loved the other book I read by him and had one on my shelves he is called by Knausgaard the most exciting living writer high praise indeed.

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun I said when I read Child of all nation last year I would be returning to her soon rather than later and I have borrowed this book set in Frankfurt it sees the characters over a short time but their lives are mapped out ion that time.I can’t wait for this one. As this is a writer I want to read more of have you read this book ?

Another writer I have read before Serve the people by Yan Lianke this is an earlier book that has just been reissued set at the Height of Mo’s power in 1967it is a tale of forbidden love between the bored wife of the commander and one of the young soldiers. an age-old tale set against the backdrop of the Mo years should be interesting. I was drawn in by the cover of this one.

Last but not least is one I thought I had reviewed but when I checked in the library the day I visit I  hadn’t reviewed it on the blog but then when I got home and looked at my shelves I had brought it when these Faber reissues came out I often do this I have so many books these days not being one to keep track I missed I had this one which was one of four reissued the other two I had reviewed and the other one I brought concrete I have reviewed since anyway I have this and frost to review on my shelves oh and the voice Imitator maybe to do another Thomas Bernhard week I did it in July but this time as he was born and died in the middle of February I know it is short notice but let’s do a Thomas Bernhard week again !! from Feb 14-21 2022

So not wanting to do a review forgive me as I did this instead of a break as I love this type of post and hadn’t done one for a long while. Have you been to your library recently?

 

 

Having a break

I’ve decided that I need stop blogging for a day or two

Stu’s year of Books winstonsdad best of 2021

I am late to the mark here with my best-of list basically I’ve been reading other Blog and Vlogs best-of list for the last year and completely missed that I had not done my own hitting the ground review and reading-wise it isn’t till now I have decided to go back over the last year and pick those books that have stuck with me. Now this may be a different set of books from highlights I have pick of the months of last year as I feel books change after we read them some grow some just stay others just wilt away. So I am not a huge stats person to now I am moving forward using Goodreads a lot more as a way to track my reading and also gain some end of year stats. I reviewed 91 books from 30 countries. I had want to read more African books last year I had read a few more but there is room for a couple more this year. I read books from North and south America, Africa , Europe and Asia but missed books from Oceania and the Pacific which I need to fix this year.any way here are my books of the year I am doing them in the order I read them in the year.

At night all blood is black by David Diop

This tale of two African soldiers in the trenches a story that hasn’t been talked about a lot it follows what happens when your best friend is shot and the enemy is there and you have to get revenge.

30th April 1945 by Alexangder Kluge

Anyone that has followed this blog in the last couple of years will know a writer I am championing and absolutely love is Alexander Kluge here with have vignettes fact and fiction that circle the world on the day that is near the end of world war two.  His books are rabbitholes for the mind it is hard not to pick the other book by him I read but I will resist anyway go out pick him up !!

Tower by Bae Myung- Hoon

I read a hell of a lot more Korean books this year than I have previously and this was one that really stuck with me a futuristic tower building a dystopic world of interlinking stories that in place are funny.

A musical Offering by Luis Sagasti

I’m seeing a theme her of interlinking stories in the book here is another collection that has music at its heart and a diving board for the tales with like Kluge a mix of fact and fiction I loved his previous book I think he is my favourite Latin American writer at the moment

In memory of memory by Maria Steponova

Oh well, another book that drifts as she goes through her grand flat she looks back on her own families history and her homelands at the same time a book that is in that grey area between fiction and non-fiction in a way.

Elegy for Joseph Cornell by Maria Negroni

Oh another collection here of prose and poetry piece that area a bio and tribute to the artist Joesph Cornell a lost gem from Dalkey a man that like to wander his home city of New york

The cheap eaters by Thomas Bernhard

A new translation of one of his lesser-known books a man is drawn onto a group of men that eat the cheapest meals every day in a government-run restaurant in Vienna. I am a long time Bernhard fan and it is always great to add another title to the list of books I have reviewed by him.

The return of Caravels by Antonio Lobo Antunes

Like Bernhard Antunes is a writer I love and this a bok that mix the past and those seafarers returning to Modern Lisbon much to there horror a writer that always deals with his own countries past so well and openly.

To see out the night by David Clerson

A writer whose novel I loved returns with a collection of short stories, I said in the review I am not a short story fan well going through this years choice I think I am a bigger fan than I think anyway QC have been brought use some great books from Quebec her we have people turning to great apes and secret cities under cities.

Special Needs by Lada Vukic

As many of you may know I work on a ward caring and helping get better people with Learning disabilities that are in crisis so I was wary of this book as it is hard to capture that voice of someone with learning disabilities without it seeming wrong but for me this is the best such voice I have read it is such a voice of someone with Autisms view of the world.

 

3 Minutes and 53 Seconds by Branko Prlja

A series of vignettes form a bildungsroman using the writers love of music and the songs for each year I like this as a lot of the songs I knew some I loved other I didn’t but it was a great way to show the upheaval in the  Balkans in his teen years having to move to a new city and his use of music to convey that another underrated gem from Dalkey

Three Bedrooms in Manhatten by Georges Simenon

I have been working through the Penguin books as they have brought out a lot of his books in New translations here is a book from his time in the US capturing those dark post-war years before the shining fifties to lost souls in a big city.

Well there they are my twelve books of the year as ever I feel I am on my own journey in books I love books that have interlink stories of vignettes around themes and also champing small presses and writers I have loved for a long time. What were your books of the year where did your journey take you last year did our paths cross?

 

Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangel

Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangel

French fiction

Original title – Un monde à portée de main

Translator – Jessica Moore

Source – Review Copy

I move for the fifth book this month to France to a book that could be on the man booker longlist that I didn’t get to last year a book from a writer I have reviewed another book by her Mend the living. She has been writing novels since 2000 her 2010 novel birth of a bridge was on the Prix Goncourt shortlist and also won a number of other prizes with this book. and with the book I have read Ment the living which was also made into a film. So here I have her latest book that follows a young woman from her student days to her first day in work and also the group of friends she made while studying. What follows is how they develop as artists and people

YOU MIGHT WONDER HOW PAULA KARST, THIS AVERAGE young woman, sheltered and predictable (and a little on the lazy side)_ someone who spends most of her time sitting in a cafe booth in the company of others like her, every ounce of existence frothing in the espresso with the mix of grace and vacuity that grazes genius; hpw this impetuous dabbler, for whom the future was invaribly and comfortably concealed in sfumato, ended up plunging headlong into the large studio on the rue de metal. even more suprising: she rushed there.

As she studies and liuves woth Jonas and has kate about the coffee and the drinks flows

The book follows Paula  Karst and her group of friends she made while studying art at an Institute in  Brussels what Maylis paints is a broad group of people a Female Bouncer from Scotland Kate is a tall blonde with her roots showing big teeth made her lips look thin then Jonas described as having owl-like eyes and lassos for arms these three stay close out of a class of 20 odd students the=ose months of nights out and drink draw them into a close relationship. What they are learning is how to use the techniques that make up the style of art Trompe-l’œi those works made to deceive the viewer but the question is here who is deceiving as she starts to work on film sets working on the sets this work takes her from place to place job to job but she wonders what is the point of this at times is she a real artist of just a Trompe-l’œi herself! this is a young woman that has the techniques but the jobs she is in has closed her creativity to just copying we she here learning how to fake effects with the friends this is ultimately tested when she has to fake the famous cave paintings of Lascaux as she reworks them we get an insight into her and her friend’s world.

But very quickly, in a pendulum swing that she anticipates mischievously, these same students start to worry about their originality, they squirm, stand on tiptoes to stick their heads above the pack, and stake their  claim to their way of doing things, their unique brushstoke. This thirst for distinction that torments them surfaces again after the shock treatment of their traing in woods and marbles it reappears like a lump in batter, and soon the students make it clear that they see the required exercises as strait jackets, ridgid, narrow, stifling their movements, suffocating their personalities, drying up their desire – this is how they express themselves incensed.

The struggle between the craft of paint and the art of being an Artist is caught well and is at the heart of what is Paula.

This is a book about learning who we are about those boundaries between art and craft Paula has the craft it is the bedrock of her style but like her surname which is an eroded landscape where the rick has been shaped into peaks and troughs, this is maybe a nod to what has happened to the Artist Paula Karst of the book, over time her artistic creative side has disappeared as she becomes a craft person is there a difference to me there is that spark is getting lost in her but she is working that paradox is hard to live with. As she starts working on the sets for Cinecitta. Like her other books, Maylis manages to turn the focus of her book onto one subject a heart her is is painting but what is painting is coping tricking art or craft !! This also maybe says something about her own life and that of her friends and the art. The book is rich in the techniques and study of art and what it takes to perfect the Trompe-l’œi style but at what cost! I read this thinking it would be a possible Man booker international chance after reading it I would be shocked not to see it on the list. I’ve never read a book that captures what it is to be an artist so well the craft of painting as they learn is caught well and then how they then go on to lose the techniques is caught well it is about art more than the people for my opinion. What did you think about this book? did it draw you into the world of art as a reader like it did me?

Winstons score – ++ A. One of my favourite books recent times