Three books this month (still not enough to satisfy!), so an improvement from March and April. I am doing a PhD, buying a house, caring for a toddler, and carrying another baby, so perhaps it’s reasonable that I’m distracted? I’m currently reading The Romance of the Rose, which might take me a little while. But I have very high hopes for new Ali Smith and Jane Harris novels that I can’t wait to get my hands on; the former is out tomorrow, but I’m hoping that the local Waterstones has a copy in early.
(15th May) The Siege – Ismail Kadare
Not sure I know enough about the Ottoman Empire or Albania under Hoxha’s Stalinist rule to really grasp all the subtleties of this novel. Nevertheless, it was striking and vivid prose.
(21st May) The Little Girl from the Chartreuse – Pierre Peju
Another translated novel glorifying the reading process, but at least in a slightly more interesting narrative form than The Shadow of the Wind. Personal anecdote: the book was given to me by Christopher Maclehose, who has done some rather wonderful things for literature in this country. I’m less proud of the fact that after meeting with him I then went on to write a pretty bog-standard Masters dissertation on fiction in translation.
(29th May) Easter Parade – Richard Yates
This last makes me realise that the books I read in May were uniformly pretty desolate, that I read all non-British fiction this month, and that I would love to read more Richard Yates, but I’d probably better intersperse them with more upbeat offerings.
