Etgar Keret: Kneller’s Happy Campers
The Israeli writer, Etgar Keret, is probably best known for writing short stories, a few collections of which have seen translation. Typically the stories are very short, no more than…
Alejandro Zambra: Bonsai
I‘ve mentioned before how lovely Melville House’s Contemporary Art of the Novella series is and have been meaning for some time to read another. Bonsai (2006) by Alejandro Zambra felt…
Raymond Queneau: The Flight Of Icarus
Last year I enjoyed Raymond Queneau’s Exercises In Style, arguably his most famous book, although as narrative goes it was rather slight, being the same story told ninety-nine times in…
Eric Ambler: Uncommon Danger
After a lengthy hiatus from reading, I thought it best to reaquaint myself to books with something pacy that would have the pages turning themselves with gleeful abandon. A thriller,…
Reif Larsen: The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet
Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet (2009) caused a bit of storm last year when the American rights were snapped up for almost a million dollars. Its interesting…
Eduardo Mendoza: No Word From Gurb
If aliens were to read Eduardo Mendoza’s No Word From Gurb (1990) they may well determine that it suffers from ‘structural simplicity’. While this is true, it makes it no…
Bragi Ólafsson: The Pets
Bragi Ólafsson’s The Pets (2001) is the second release from Open Letter Books (Dubravka Ugrešić’s Nobody’s Home was the first) and their first piece of fiction. While it’s the first…
Saul Bellow: Dangling Man
Try as I might, I’ve never connected with Saul Bellow’s prose. My first attempt was The Actual, his penultimate work, and his shortest. A few pages in and I was…
John Steinbeck: To A God Unknown
Long ago I’d expressed an interest in reading the works of John Steinbeck in chronological order, starting with Cup Of Gold, his account of Sir Henry Morgan’s piratic life, and…
Ana María del Río: Carmen’s Rust
It’s thanks to a slurry of comments on Chilean literature in my review of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, that I come to Ana María del Río’s Carmen’s Rust (1986). The…