I originally intended to write a blog post about ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Kesey during Banned Books Week (27th September – 3rd October). However, I fell a bit behind with my reviewing around that time and while it’s important to have these events to spread awareness, reading banned books needn’t be restricted to just one week of the year. First published in 1962 followed by an equally famous film adaptation in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson, the story is set in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon and follows the lives of the patients who live under the controlled regime of Nurse Ratched. However, the arrival of a new patient, Randle McMurphy, who faked insanity to serve his prison sentence in what he believed would be more comfortable surroundings, soon changes everything.
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Tag Archives: Novels
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
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Things We Have in Common by Tasha Kavanagh
While the Man Booker Prize is one of the most high-profile literary awards in the world (and congratulations to Marlon James for last night’s win by the way), the alternative Not the Booker prize run by the Guardian’s books website has also been growing in popularity over the past few years. ‘Things We Have in Common’ by Tasha Kavanagh was featured on this year’s Not the Booker shortlist and was narrowly pipped to the post by Kirstin Innes’ novel ‘Fishnet’ which won the overall prize on Monday. ‘Things We Have in Common’ is narrated by Yasmin Laksaris, an overweight half-Turkish teenager who becomes obsessed with Alice Taylor, one of the most popular girls at school. Yasmin spots a man watching Alice outside school and when she goes missing, Yasmin is convinced she already knows who has taken her. Continue reading
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The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Having read some slightly silly thrillers recently in the form of I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, I thought it was time to read one of the very first “sensation” books of the mystery genre. Originally published in serial form between 1859 and 1860, ‘The Woman in White’ is Wilkie Collins’ most famous novel and also happens to be a book which has been on my reading list for a very long time. It opens with Walter Hartwright encountering a mysterious woman dressed all in white near Hampstead Heath. He is later hired to tutor Laura Fairlie and her half-sister Marian Halcombe in watercolour painting at Limmeridge House in Cumberland. Walter falls in love with Laura but she is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde. Although Walter learns that the woman in white is Anne Catherick, a local woman who has escaped from an asylum, he notices that Laura bears a striking resemblance to her. After their marriage, Sir Percival and Laura return to live in Blackwater accompanied by Glyde’s friend Count Fosco, one of the most formidable villains in literature who concocts a cunning plan to help Sir Percival get his hands on Laura’s money. Continue reading
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I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
‘I Am Pilgrim’ by Terry Hayes opens with an elite intelligence agent codenamed Pilgrim being brought out of retirement to investigate the brutal murder of a woman in the rundown Eastside Inn in New York whose identifying features have all been dissolved with acid. Meanwhile, Pilgrim is also attempting to track down a Saudi Arabian doctor known as the Saracen who was radicalised after his father was publicly beheaded and is seeking revenge by unleashing a deadlier version of smallpox on the United States. It later transpires that the two investigations are closely linked. Continue reading
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Four More Books I’ve Read This Summer
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blogged about Jon Ronson’s talk at the Hay Festival earlier this year which was about his latest book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I read it a couple of weeks after attending the Festival and it is by far the most terrifying book I’ve read this year. Shame is one of the most powerful yet least talked-about human emotions and Ronson examines the dark consequences of shaming people on social media, usually after they have said or done something politically incorrect. Having already heard Ronson talk about the main content of the book such as the Justine Sacco and Jonah Lehrer cases, there were fewer elements of surprise for me when reading it as some of the material was already familiar. However, Ronson’s observations on the subject are very astute and he has chosen an interesting range of examples for the book. Although ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ doesn’t provide any real “answers” as to why people shame others, it is a thought-provoking look at the very modern phenomenon of online mob justice. Continue reading
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The Man in a Hurry by Paul Morand
Originally published as ‘L’Homme pressé’ in 1941, ‘The Man in a Hurry’ by Paul Morand has recently been translated from the French by Euan Cameron and printed by Pushkin Press. It tells the story of Pierre Niox, a Parisian antiques dealer who is permanently in a rush to get things done. His friends, business partner, valet and even his cat can’t keep up with his frenetic pace of life and gradually abandon him. However, when Pierre falls in love with the laidback and easy-going Hedwige, he is forced to adapt his impulsive behaviour to win her over by learning how to settle down and savour the simple things in life. Continue reading
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Is the new Man Booker International Prize good news for translated fiction?
It was announced earlier this week that the Man Booker International Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize will be merging next year to create a new literary prize for translated fiction.
Novels and short story collections translated into English and published in the UK will be eligible for the annual Man Booker International Prize with a longlist of twelve or thirteen novels announced in March, a shortlist in April and the winner in May. Like the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the award will be shared equally between the author and translator. Continue reading
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My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
‘My Brilliant Friend’ is the first in the series of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, it tells the story of two young girls, Elena Greco and Raffaela “Lila” Cerullo, spanning their friendship over the years. The series opens with Elena, aged in her sixties, taking a telephone call from Lila’s son Rino who informs her that Lila has gone missing. Having received this news, Elena looks back on her childhood and adolescence growing up with her lifelong friend outside Naples during the late 1950s and 1960s. Continue reading
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Disclaimer by Renee Knight
‘Disclaimer’ by Renee Knight tells the story of Catherine Ravenscroft, a woman who starts reading a book entitled ‘The Perfect Stranger’ which she doesn’t remember buying and has mysteriously turned up on her bedside table in the chaos of moving house. However, although supposedly fictional, the story is about a real life-changing event which happened to Catherine twenty years ago. Neither her husband Robert nor her son Nicholas know about it and the words in the disclaimer “any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is unintentional and purely coincidental” have been deliberately crossed out in red ink. The author of the book is Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher who wants to make Catherine pay for what happened all of those years ago. Continue reading
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
I’ve had mixed views about Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels in the past. I was baffled by ‘Never Let Me Go’ but enjoyed it, I was even more baffled by ‘The Unconsoled‘ and enjoyed it much less. I liked ‘When We Were Orphans’ but thought it wasn’t quite as good as ‘The Remains of the Day’ which I think is a modern classic. My initial thoughts on his latest novel ‘The Buried Giant’ definitely lean more towards bafflement than enjoyment.
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Five Books I’ve Read Recently
I normally write a post about books I have read but haven’t reviewed at the end of the year but I may start doing review round-ups a bit more frequently so I don’t fall too far behind. Here are my thoughts about five books I’ve read in the past three months or so:
Dubbed as a “Facebook thriller”, Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach tells the story of socially awkward Leila, who is approached by Adrian Dervish to impersonate Tess Williams online to create the illusion that Tess is still alive after she has committed suicide. It’s not uncommon for me to have mixed feelings about a book but I usually have some idea of whether I either liked it or disliked it overall. However, the reason I didn’t review ‘Kiss Me First’ around the time I read it back in March was because I genuinely had no idea how I felt about it. The concept was cleverly manipulated but I still felt the implausible elements of the story generally outweighed the plausible ones, particularly the pretence of keeping Tess “alive” online. Either way, it would certainly be an interesting novel to discuss in a book group. Continue reading
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Hay Festival: Jessie Burton and Jon Ronson
I went to two events during my second day at the Hay Festival on Monday. First up in the morning was Jessie Burton in conversation with Georgina Godwin about her novel ‘The Miniaturist’ in the Tata tent. The event was the last day of the official tour to promote her novel which was on of the biggest debuts of 2014. As Godwin noted in her introduction, the book “went viral in an analogue way” becoming a word-of-mouth bestseller and has since been published in 34 countries.
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The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Widely touted as “Sliding Doors meets One Day”, ‘The Versions of Us’ by Laura Barnett tells the story of Eva Edelstein and Jim Taylor who meet as undergraduates at Cambridge University in the late 1950s. Eva is injured in a cycling accident after swerving to avoid a dog and from this point onwards, there are three versions of their story. In one version, Eva and Jim start a relationship. In another version, Eva barely acknowledges Jim and marries her current boyfriend, David. In another version, Eva discovers she has fallen pregnant and cuts Jim out of her life to marry David. Continue reading
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Stoner by John Williams
As noted by The Millions, “There are things that are famous for being famous, such as the Kardashians, and then there are things that are famous for not being famous, such as John Williams’s Stoner”. This week marks the fiftieth anniversary since ‘Stoner’ was first published but the almost forgotten novel has only become well-known in the last couple of years some two decades after the author’s death and ten years after being reissued. Somewhat ironically, it is revealed in the first paragraph that the main character, William Stoner, is also quickly forgotten by his students and colleagues after his death in 1956. Originally a student of agriculture entering the University of Missouri as a freshman in 1910, he later switches to literature and becomes an academic and professor. Continue reading
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How to be both by Ali Smith
Now that the shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has been released, I am taking a break from reading and reviewing translated fiction for a while. ‘How to be both’ by Ali Smith has been shortlisted for just about every major literary award in recent months including the Man Booker Prize, the Folio Prize, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Costa Book Awards as well as winning the Goldsmiths Prize and the more I have heard about it in recent months, the more I have wanted to read it. One half is set in fifteenth century Italy and tells the story of al fresco Renaissance artist Franceshco del Cossa. The other half is set in modern Britain and tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl called George whose mother has recently died. Continue reading
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The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Shortlist 2015
The official shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced this week:
- The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
- In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
- F by Daniel Kehlmann translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway
- By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
- While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
We can also reveal our shadow jury shortlist:
- The Ravens by Tomas Bannerhed translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
- The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
- Bloodlines by Marcello Fois translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella
- The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
- Zone by Mathias Énard translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
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Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett, ‘Boyhood Island’ is the third instalment of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ambitious six-book cycle of autobiographical novels known as ‘My Struggle’. Having explored some of Knausgaard’s later childhood in ‘A Death in the Family‘, the second volume ‘A Man in Love‘ jumped forward in time to concentrate on his experiences of fatherhood. As you may guess from the title, ‘Boyhood Island’ jumps back in time again to Knausgaard’s childhood. Continue reading
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While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier and The Last Lover by Can Xue
‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’ by Erwin Mortier and translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent tells the story of Helena Demont, a very elderly woman approaching her hundredth birthday who is reflecting on her experiences as a young woman living in Belgium at the start of the First World War. The story explores Helena’s relationships with her French mother, Belgian father, brother Edgard and her British husband Matthew with whom she has a daughter. Continue reading
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By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
‘By Night the Mountain Burns’ by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is the first novel by an author from Equatorial Guinea to be longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. It is also only the second book from the country ever to be translated into English and recounts the narrator’s childhood memories of living on the small remote island of Annobón in the South Atlantic Ocean where the inhabitants deal with various crises including a bush fire and a cholera epidemic. Continue reading
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Bloodlines by Marcello Fois
‘Bloodlines’ by Marcello Fois and translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella tells the story of the Chironi family during the early twentieth century in Sardinia. Michele Angelo Chironi, a blacksmith and Mercede Lai are both orphans who marry seven months after they first meet at a church in 1889. While the early years of their marriage are happy ones, their lives are plagued with misfortune after the turn of the century. Continue reading
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