The Company of Men is Joseph Barnes’ translation of Romain Gary’s 1949 novel, Le Grande Vestiaire. ‘Vestiaire’ can be translated in a number of different ways, though probably the most accurate her…

As has become a tradition, I decided to start off our latest club reading week with some crime novels, and 1949 was certainly a bumper year for those. I mentioned some in my post last week on previ…

Jean Echenoz’s Jérôme Lindon recounts, in sixty spare, affectionate, sometimes lightly barbed pages, the twenty-year relationship that its author enjoyed with his publisher, a legend of the French …

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The first decade of the 21st century saw a series of innovations and wins by Hilary Mantel, Alan Hollinghurst and Yann Martel. But several lesser-known works demand attention too

If you follow Karen (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings) and Simon (Stuck in a Book), you’ll know that another of their hugely enjoyable ‘Club’ weeks is about to begin. Starting on Monday 12th October, the…

Imagine the sight: on a foggy February morning in Milan, the modest and apologetic narrator of the title story of this long overdue translation of short fiction by the enigmatic Argentinian writer&…

The Innocent Party is the fifth book I’ve read by the British writer Celia Dale, and I’m starting to wonder whether her novels fall into two distinct but closely related groups. Firstly, we have th…

In her debut novel, Attention Seeking Behaviour, Aea Varfus-Van Warmelo presents the reader with an unreliable narrator we can (almost) rely on, her honesty bringing the confession that she is rout…

In her debut novel, Attention Seeking Behaviour, Aea Varfus-Van Warmelo presents the reader with an unreliable narrator we can (almost) rely on, her honesty bringing the confession that she is rout…

Published in 1923, and the fifth winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Riceyman Steps is Arnold Bennett’s thirtieth novel. Set in Clerkenwell in London, it tells the story of Henry Eralfor…

Published in 1923, and the fifth winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Riceyman Steps is Arnold Bennett’s thirtieth novel. Set in Clerkenwell in London, it tells the story of Henry Eralfor…

Despite having overflowing bookshelves and a mountainous TBR, I still always seem to amass multiple copies of individual titles, and today’s book is a good example of that. Back in the 1990s …

Slowly but surely, I’m working my way through Anita Brooker’s exquisitely written novels in publication order – they really are jewel-like in construction. First published in 1996, Altered States i…

Praised by Raymond Chandler as one of the best suspense writers of her era, the American writer Elisabeth Sanxay Holding produced eighteen crime novels and many short stories over the course of her…

As anyone who has come to love a writer who writes in a language you do not read knows, you are at the mercy of translators and publishers. If you are honest with yourself, you accept that certain …

As anyone who has come to love a writer who writes in a language you do not read knows, you are at the mercy of translators and publishers. If you are honest with yourself, you accept that certain …

A roundup of books I read in July and August 2026 including several titles for WIT Month.

Jean Echenoz opens his tribute to his longtime editor and publisher, with an account that many other hopeful, and perhaps naïve, would-be authors might know well.  It is 1979, he has just turn…

If there’s ever a book which had me wanting to rush off to northern climes, it’s “An Island Rooing” by Joan Grigsby! The latest release from Michael Walmer in his Northus Sh…

If you follow Nora (Pear Jelly) on Bluesky or Instagram, you’ll know that she’s currently hosting #SpinsterSeptember, a themed reading event showcasing books featuring unmarried women, from the cla…