A young, disaffected woman works as a maid/cook at a short stay home on the border of south and North Korea. One winter a French male comic book artist comes to stay and asks the woman to show him the area. What follows is a push and pull situation between the two that has no nice neat resolution.

This was an interesting and quick read. The book is set on a ship that has travelled to a distant planet. The crew is a mix of human and humanoid and the boom is told in brief interviews with various employees. We soon come to understand that strange objects have been brought on to the ship triggering emotions in both the humans and the humanoids, and raises issues of independence, cognition and emotion. Interesting and thoughtful.

I read this book about a month ago and am just catching up on reviews now. I had noted it as a three star but… now I can‘t remember a single story in this collection. The stories are horror-tinged and dark is all I recall but nothing else made enough of an impact to linger. I guess that says everything.

Set in the late nineteenth century, this is a short novella of two intertwining stories. First is a priest who is hunting a blue fox and gets trapped in an avalanche and ends up hallucinating. The second is the story of a herbalist and the girl with Down‘s syndrome that he ends up rescuing and caring for until her death. The two stories come together and while there is darkness there is also goodness in this story.

One sister is responsible and feels she has to care for the other sister, an emotionally fraught and dramatic woman. They go on a retreat and really not much occurs. Boring and forgettable.

A short, bleak novella about a man who uses woman, a wife who ignores the problem and a young woman - the daughter of a friend - that comes to live with them. Lives are upended and no one redeems themselves.

Not quite sure how I felt about this one. It was a fast read and the conceit was interesting, but everything felt just too over the top for my liking. I have the author‘s first book, Strange Pictures, which I will read but if it is more of the same, I‘m unlikely to continue with the author.

I absolutely adored this gentle, beautiful book. An older man has a travelling library that tours through rural and northern Quebec. After meeting a travelling troupe of performers from France, they join him on his journey. This is a story of loneliness and the love of books (and cats!) and opening oneself to companionship in later life. Absolutely gorgeous.

A wrenching story that does not offer clear answers or moral certitude. Delecroix examines the issue of the migrant boats that travel through international waters to reach the UK, and what happens when one of those boats sinks, killing most on board. It looks at the way in which blame is shifted on a single individual so government and society can feel blameless. Heartbreaking and relevant.

This is my second Lane Winslow mystery and I am delighting in this series. I do so enjoy a period mystery but where the women get to be strong, capable, independent characters. The incorporation of WW2 and post-WW2 geopolitics raises the bar on these mysteries. Good fun, and love the interior BC setting

Another solid entry in the McNally Editions catalogue of previously out of print novels. This book could not be more timely in its dystopian setting where a group of artists desperately attempts to continue making art in the face of nameless oppressors who silence and destroy music, art, literature and those who thrive on it in search of a homogenous and non-intellectual society. Fascinating, creepy and terribly relevant.

After two months of chaos, finally having a chance to catch up on posting.
This book won‘t be for everyone with its frank discussion of the author‘s partner‘s terminal illness and death. She describes the uncomfortable experiences and feelings, including her attraction to another man during this period. Orstavik is confident in going to places many memoirs would not.

There is nothing better than a weekend with few responsibilities and some terrific books.

A lovely and sad book about a young man - Lorenzo - who travels to Romania after the death of his mother who abandoned him years prior to chase her dreams (and lover) there. It‘s a quiet story of loss and memory and sorrow, and also a story of modern Romania and the impact of foreigners. Archipelago Press never disappoints.

An odd book about a man on the run stranded on a strange island that has some structures but no people. One day a group of people appear on the island and the narrator falls in love with one of the women, but not everything is as it seems. A very strange, short read and I feel like I need to read it a second time to really get it.

A brief book on the ways to challenge tyranny. Important and timely in the world we currently live in.

Not entirely sure how to review this book as the first half was terrific and the exploration of the unusual relationship between the author‘s parents, her family‘s history and the strong bond between the author and her mother. This part of the story was compelling. However half way through there is a sudden reveal and after that the writing becomes a lot more disjointed and the book becomes quite… whiny? TW: abuse

I know this book was on many best of lists but it was only a soft pick for me. I felt the underlying themes of memory of the events of WW2 and the Holocaust and personal complicity were important and well done. I also enjoyed the exploration of LGBTQ relationships in mid-20th century Europe. However, I felt some of the interactions were just… not real? Something just felt off. A soft pick.

Not sure about this book about a competitive swimmer who has an abusive coach and in turns abuses her body and pushes it to the breaking point. While I have no doubt at all abuse in sports exists, large swathes of this book just felt over the top and perhaps in doing so can lead a reader to feel that this (and *only* this) is what abuse in sport looks like.

I absolutely adored this gentle book of three disparate people from different walks of life and different generations, all in need of support and love and connection, who become roommates and ultimately family. It is sweet and charming in the best kind of way without being saccharine. The loveliest type of summer reading.

Not really sure about this book. It is the (true) story of the author‘s fixation on a woman who left him years before and who calls him out of the blue to be a “mystery guest” at her friend‘s birthday party. A little too navel gazing for my liking particularly when it felt like there was little reason to be so wrapped up in the past.

There definitely has been a theme to my reading lately as I grapple with current events and view them through the lens of the past. Friedrich Reck was a conservative in Germany who was vehemently anti-Nazi and Hitler from the very beginning. His observations of Germany as they slid towards tyranny and horror are astute, cutting and incisive.

This is published by Verso - a fabulous indie publisher. Based on as many historical documents as the author could access, it covers the life of Josef Mengele as he fled prosecution for his role at Auschwitz. A despicable man, it did raise questions though about the many complicit people in positions of power at corporations who benefitted from Nazi actions and were never punished. Thought provoking.

Catching up on reviews after a crazy few weeks. This is a wonderful children‘s story that is equally for adults about a despot who takes over an island and bans the letter O, and the way the village responds to the irrational situation. Timely and applicable.

Spending my evening catching up on the #readlesmis read-a-long. Glad to be diving back into this even if I am ankle deep in a many-chapter denunciation of the convent way of life. Oh how Hugo loves his digressions! 😂

My preorder arrived and I literally dropped every other book I‘m reading to dive in to this one. So far I‘m loving it!

A little late to the party but a slower start this morning allowed me to dip into this before I got my day started. Very happy to be back with the #europacollective!

Hard to pick just one quote from this book, appallingly timely in its observations applied to current events, 90 years later.

“With his oily hair falling into his face as he ranted, he had the look of a man trying to seduce the cook. I got the impression of basic stupidity, the same kind of his crony Papen - the kind of stupidity which equates statemanshio with cheating at a horse trade.”

Like many I enjoyed this somewhat strange book of a young disabled woman who periodically tweets her unspeakable thoughts and writes pornography from the safety of the care home she lives in until one day she makes a proposition. The beginning and the end are ambiguous so if you are in search of definites, this is not the book for you. An important book for it‘s shocking but not pitying look at disability, autonomy and sexuality.

I enjoyed Naspini‘s book Nives, so when I saw this while in London I grabbed it. The story in this is a difficult one - a young man finds out his father is responsible for the murder of several young woman and of keeping a girl locked in a storage container for 14 years. The story bounces from points of view but some reactions and behaviours in the aftermath of this just do not strike the right note, particularly the ending. #europacollective

I absolutely adore Fitzcarraldo Editions and this was no exception. A couple moves to Berlin from the southern Mediterranean as part of the new creative/design class and then follows them as they become disillusioned with the effects on community and place that they and their generation created. It is a scathing critique on the gentrification and generic sameness that grew out of the last twenty years and the blindness of those that created it.

This is my first Iris Origo and it won‘t be my last. It is the author‘s diary of the entrance of Italy during World War II, and her unique perspective as a well-connected British woman living with her Italian husband in the countryside of Italy. Its commentary on the realities of living under fascism, effects of propaganda and the manner in which people continued to live their lives is as relevant today as it was 85 years ago.

What can I say about this book that those before me have not said? Tara wakes up one morning to find herself repeating the previous day. However for everyone around her, it is their first time experiencing November 18. While this could be an amusing Groundhog-Day style story, instead Balle takes this in a much more interesting direction. It becomes a meditation on time and experience, connections, love and everything in between. Con‘t ⬇️

I have a lot of love for the McNally Editions series of overlooked books. This is a coming-of-age story of a young girl - Irene - growing up in a still-segregated town in 1950s Kansas. It is told in a series of chapters from various characters point of view, which gives depth to the story (and is one of my favourite narrative devices). Neither cloying nor strident, this book struck the perfect balance. Excellent.

This book was based on true events in Italy where 2 young women are murdered near a small community and a third survives. Now an adult, a friend of the survivor has returned to the community where she confronts the memories of that time of her life and the way the community has moved beyond the event. While I found it interesting enough as I read it, nothing really stood out and was fairly forgettable as soon as I completed it. #europacollective

Just your average weekend, judging Eastern Canadian Trampoline Gymnastics Championships with some good books in between flights of athletes. Fun watching all these kids who have worked so hard, representing their province.

After making it through the Battle of Waterloo (which tested my patience and nearly had me yelling MERDE on more than one occasion), I am back with Jean Valjean and eager to catch up with the schedule. #readlesmis

A very short volume that challenges our perceptions of those we think of as “the good side” in World War II. The nameless narrator is fighting alongside Dutch partisans and others when he leaves the unit and ends up at a large empty house. He settles in and German troops arrive to billet there. Eventually they leave and the unit he was with returns and the novel descends into a climax of violence. (Cont‘d in comments.)

I read Orstavik‘s Love a while ago and was eager to try another of her books, so I preordered this one in advance of its release. The story centers on the narrator - a woman whose father was deeply abusive and who recently lost the man she loves - and her current, volatile relationship with a much younger man. There is also a story-within-a-story as the main character is an author. A meditation on the impact of abuse and the choice to be set free.

As I get older I find I‘ve been wandering further from new or popular fiction and diving deep into translations and older literature as so much is relevant to our current age or forces me to look at the world through a new lens. This book, a novella combined with a collection of short stories, looks at the history and continued violence in a small mountain community in Turkey and how easy it is to be overlooked by the rest of the country.

If the first two books in this series were difficult but allowed for some… empathy?… towards the main character and the choices they make, this book turns that on its head. Still loosely connected (and you really have to allow for a lot of coincidences) this book examines a character who is so despicable, morally reprehensible and evil that she defies characterization. I am interested in seeing how Boyne wraps this series up.

After reading Water I moved immediately to this book and for a short book (148 pages) it dealt with a lot of big issues such as sexuality, sex work, abuse, and guilt. Again, a difficult read (and at times I struggled with the timeline of this book and how it fit with the previous, loosely connected book). Still, I am interested in finishing the series.

After seeing a lot of reviews about these I decided to dive into the series. And… oof. These books are not for the faint hearted (and the first one is relatively mild, compared with the next two). An examination of abuse and what stays hidden, what do you know and what do you willfully not know and are therefore complicit. Dark but thought-provoking.

I picked this up while on my trip to London earlier this year at Daunt Books, who actually published this novel. I found this to be a hard read - it is the story of a gay man who returns to the home of his now-deceased abusive mother to clean it out and spends a night with a former lover. I came away disturbed and not entirely sure of the point of this except people can be horrible.

My first Zweig and I wasn‘t disappointed. I enjoyed the two narrators (one narrator relates a story including a story related to him by the second narrator). It‘s a story of the horrors of war and the methods of torture and the impact of near madness told through the lens of a chess game.

A few weeks ago my dad was hospitalized after a stroke (it is weird to type those words, as though putting them here makes them real). The last weeks have been filled with hospital trips and hours spent at his bedside. Today I needed comfort reading and bought this beautiful edition of a favourite childhood read. Puppy protection has also been engaged.

I absolutely adored this short volume of collected writings by E. B. White. It is a collection of observations, poetry and short pieces about life in New York. My personal favourite, which I absolutely know I will read again, was Goodbye to 48th Street, about the possessions that collect in a home over a lifetime and the effort to get rid of them. McNally Editions continues to delight with their publications.

Plays are not something I normally pick up to read, but this was for a book club (which I then forgot about due to life events 😂). It‘s a fun story of a woman who befriends crows after being fired from her job at a grocery store when she stands up to rampant capitalism, misogyny and racism. I particularly enjoyed the ending, which I won‘t spoil.

I do so love Europa for their dedication in publishing the books that are not destined for big bestseller lists, and this book was no exception. It is a gentle tale of community and people finding each other in post-war Vienna. People make connections and fall out of touch, all told against the backdrop of a small cafe in a changing city. An utter delight.

This book is tricky. It is a Dutch translation and centres on fraternal twins - a brother and sister. The sister is very dependent on her twin brother while her brother deals with depression and ultimately commits suicide. While well written I found the story oppressive and the characters unhealthy attachment dismaying.