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.

Another book from the Pushkin Collection - this is a collection of short pieces by George Orwell of his observations on England and its sociology. Some pieces are well known (Shooting an Elephant) but it was the final piece of the book - The Lion and the Unicorn - that really captured me, as it is still applicable in many ways today as it was years ago. Warning: some outdated language common to the time in which it was written.

The last few weeks have been chaotic with family issues, so I‘m trying to catch up on recent reads.

This is part of the Pushkin Collection of classics and other overlooked works. It was a quick and fun novel about a man who sees the Mona Lisa while it is being painted and believes the woman exists. What follows is a man utterly obsessed who destroys his life in the efforts of tracking her down. An odd book on the power of art.

This was a purchase while in London and I am just finishing the final piece in it - The Lion and the Unicorn. “England cannot possibly be allowed to remain as a sort of funnel through which deadly ideas from the Atlantic flow into the police states of Europe.” Whew - as a Canadian this is hitting hard looking to the rhetoric from the south these days. Some dated language but many ideas are still so relevant here.

The last of three short translations that are heavier topics. This is written as a novel but seems to be the story of the author‘s friendship with someone now experiencing dementia, and her perceptions of the many changes and losses that dementia causes, both for the person afflicted and those around them. This is beautifully written with observations that stop you in your tracks.

Another book in translation and another heavy topic. The narrator is an artist in her 60s who returns home and attempts to reconnect with the mother who cut her off after seeing herself in her daughter‘s artwork. It‘s a story of the trauma of broken mother-daughter relationships and the lifelong effect that can have. Heartbreaking but gorgeously written.

This is a tricky book to review as I can‘t say it was an enjoyable read due to its heavy content, but it was extremely well written. Clara lives in an apartment with her sick father and her young daughter. As time goes on, Clara becomes increasingly paranoid about the world outside and cuts the family off from the outside world. This is a heavy book with abuse and violence and incest, so read accordingly. A low pick due to content.

I had this book on my shelf for a while but picked up the audio on sale and I‘m SO glad I did. Haynes narrates the book and she is funny and opinionated and highly compelling and I could not wait to get back into my car to listen to her take various women in Ancient Greek myth. I have book Divine Might waiting for my next car trip. Highly recommended, particularly on audio.

I rarely annotate my books and yet here I am, busting out the flags for my #readlesmis read-a-long. My vacation had me fall behind but I should be caught up by the end of the day. I am finding it fascinating how relevant this book continues to be, and how despite its size, it is immensely readable.

I had read Michael Ondaatje long ago, but I hadn‘t read this one. On a discussion with my massage therapist he said this was one of his favourite books, and so I picked it up. I was not disappointed. This is a Toronto novel through and through, reflecting an era of major public works (the Danforth bridge, the water plant). It is a story of love and the immigrant experience. The writing is beautiful and the story timeless. Loved it!

This was a vacation purchase, found in a delightful Oxfam store (you Brits are mighty lucky!) This is an ominous novella filled with foreboding. Sylvie is 17 and spending a summer with her parents and a university group living as ancient Britons and getting a glimpse outside her life with her extremely strict and abusive father. The book veers towards its inevitable climax and was a compelling examination of our continued primitive nature.

I continue to love the writing of Claire Keegan and this short volume did not disappoint. It is the story of a disconnected farming family and the secrets that are upended after a series of unexpected events. I don‘t want to say too much to give it away, but again - Keegan‘s masterful at giving voice to the emotions of those working families who are often viewed as stern or lacking in emotion.

This was a murder mystery that wasn‘t so much a mystery but an exploration of the impact that an act of violence on those left behind and on the ways people cope (and don‘t cope). It covers guilt and trauma and lack of resolution. I really wanted this book to work more for me, but somehow it just didn‘t in ways I cannot even quite put my finger on.

I‘ve been delinquent in updating my finished books here while we were on vacation and then the post-vacation catch up, so apologies in advance for the post dump!
I read this just before I left and it is an odd book of extremely short stories with interconnected characters that become progressively weirder as the book goes on. I don‘t know that I retained much but I definitely enjoyed it while reading.