Welcome to Litsy!

Here are our choices for our June #PersephoneClub group read.

The Exiles Return: 5 people return to Vienna 10 years post-WWII to see if/how they can pick up their lives interrupted by war. Written by the author of Milton Place which we read together.

Doreen: story about and in the voice of a young British girl evacuated to the countryside after the Blitz. Book listing tagged in comments.

Steven J Zaloga and James Loop‘s work, Soviet Elite Bloc, evokes a sense of nostalgia. Written in the 1980s, it reflects on several nations including some that no longer exist. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the elite forces of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies, offering information about the capabilities of each nation.

I think this is my first pan. Picked this up on the strength of the connection with my birthplace. But the writing is clunky, the plot not terribly exciting, and the descriptions of the characters of colour are a bit dodgy. Also the main character does something at the end which they would never have done, and isn‘t justified at all. End of this author for me !

This is my first Lane Winslow mystery and I really quite enjoyed it. Set in post-WW2 Canada, the characters are quite delightful, as was the mystery. Cozy but not twee. Will definitely be reading more from this series!

Lane Winslow, ex WWII intelligence officer, is swept up in a murder investigation again, this time because of her Russian language skills.
I love the characters of these stories, and the beautiful setting of British Columbia.
📷 #audiostitching projects these days: my first attempts with dark fabric. #maneskin #handmade
#canadian #crime

Novel set AFAICT in 50s #Singapore, in a shanty town peopled with Malays & Indians. All characters have been dealt a terrible hand in life. There is an economic crisis & the country (then part of British Malaya) is picking itself up after WWII & bombings. Salina is a prostitute with a heart of gold & a kept good-for-nothing boyfriend. Heartbreaking & full of humanity
The French translation flows well but wd have benefited from a better proofreader

I bought this second-hand book online because it is written by a renowned Malaysian author and there isn't a huge choice of works translated from Malay available, but it looks like it is all set in Singapore (possibly spanning before and after its independence from Malaysia), so I'll read it first, and then decide whether it can count for #FoodandLit #Malaysia or not. If not, it'll tick the Singapore box for my Global Challenge 😁. Win-win!

The novel was very Bovary-like at the start (but more sexually frank & set in 60s Japan), and then it veered into a different territory. It is centered on a (upper?) middle-class man, & his behaviour towards his dissatisfied (then dying, then dead) wife, children, maids & others. It was all v. alien to me. The book's blurb is misleading: it's mostly about dysfunctional relationships & not about the Westernisation of Japan.

Another of my favorites comes to a close with Winspear‘s final entry in the Maisie Dobbs series. As expected, the writing is exquisite and the characters richly drawn and developed. While there‘s less of a mystery here and more tying up of loose ends, the story hangs together nicely and is peppered with references to earlier books and events. Such a wonderful series.

This is the 11th book in the Lane Winslow series! 11! And it was just as good. This one handles Japanese refugees after WWII in Canada.

I love this series and they‘re great on audio. I always listen to them as soon as they are published and then have to wait another year for the next one.