Patrick McGrath: Dr Haggard’s Disease
For months now, a number of people have been reading Patrick McGrath and talking him up. The novel they’ve usually read is Asylum but, just to be contrary, I thought…
Stefan Zweig: The Invisible Collection / Buchmendel
This nice little book from Pushkin Press, about A5 in size with quality paper, contains two shorts from Austrian author Stefan Zweig, whom I’d no knowledge of prior to spotting…
Ian McEwan: Saturday
Ian McEwan’s Saturday is the story of Henry Perowne, a London based neurosurgeon, as he reflects on his life via the events that happen during his day off. Mixing organised…
Louise Welsh: Tamburlaine Must Die
I read Welsh’s first release, The Cutting Room, when the paperback was released and I read it during a day off work. Looking back, I wish I’d went to work…
Sam Selvon: The Lonely Londoners
First published in 1956, Trinidadian born, Sam Selvon, began his London based fictions with a short novel called The Lonely Londoners. It’s set during a time when many West Indians…
Leo Tolstoy: The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
Beginning, as it does, with the death of Ivan Ilyich, you wouldn’t think there was much left to say but Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, then winds…
Tim Krabbé: The Vanishing
Not many books can claim to have been filmed on more than one occasion although as Hollywood becomes more of a recycling plant than a hotbed of imagination that will…
Ian Cross: The God Boy
Were it not for my rather unnatural obsession as regards collecting all of the Penguin Classics, I may never have heard of The God Boy by New Zealand journalist, Ian…
John McPhee: Oranges
First published in the 1960s, Oranges by twice Pulitzer winning journalist, John McPhee got a limited lease of life back in 2000 when Penguin reissued it as a modern classic.…
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa: Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories
I bought the new Penguin Classic, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Japanese author, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), with the intention of furthering my knowledge of Japanese fiction and its writers…