Sign in

Mandy Wight

@mandywight.bsky.social
97 followers 124 following 87 posts

Book blogger, reader, German to English translator, languages teacher. Joys in life include hill and city walking, yoga, tango, travelling, theatre and cinema, speaking languages I know, and having a go at learning new ones.

PostsRepliesMedia
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is a book about the failure of democracy in Germany between the wars and its consequences-it reads like a lesson for our time, with our democracies under threat once more: peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/09/23/w...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Weimar-Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer.
This book, on the fragility and collapse of democracy in Germany between 1919 and 1939, is timely indeed. The far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) party has just won the largest vote share i…
021
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I read this for #WIT2026 @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social, highly recommended for insomniacs and sleepers alike peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/08/20/s...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Women in Translation Month 2026 4: Sleepless by Marie Darrieussecq translated by Penny Hueston
One of the pleasures of reading for Women in Translation Month is not just discovering new writers, but reconnecting with past favourites. That’s how it was reading Sleepless, as I enjoyed several …
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Greek Lessons by Han Kang read for #WIT26 made took me back to debates around Christopher Nolan's Odyssey peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/08/17/w...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Women in Translation Month 3: Han Kang’s Greek Lessons and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
South Korean writer Han Kang deservedly won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2024. I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read by her: The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith and winner of the 2016 Inte…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I was so pleased to find Jana Hensel's timely book in Leipzig last week: peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/08/11/j...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Jana Hensel- Es war einmal ein Land-Warum sich der Osten von der Demokratie sich verabschiedet..
I was really pleased to come across this book in Leipzig last week. The title translates as Once Upon a Time there was a Country-Why the East is saying goodbye to Democracy and will resonate with a…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
So sad to learn that Monika Helfer has died. This is my favourite of her books about family now in English translation as Library for the War-Wounded tr Gillian Davidson peakreads.wordpress.com/2021/03/15/v...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Vati- Daddy- by Monika Helfer
Vati, by Austrian writer Monika Helfer, follows on from her novel die Bagage, The Riff-Raff, which is an imaginative reconstruction of her grandmother’s life in rural Austria during the First World…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The Sleep Thief @andotherstories.bsky.social is my first book for Women in Translation Month 2026. It's riveting. peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/08/03/w...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Women in Translation Month 2026: The Sleep Thief by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinon Antoon.
I was completely taken by Ibtisam’s first novel The Book of Disappearance, long listed for the International Booker Prize 2025, so was thrilled that The Sleep Thief arrived just in time for Women i…
031
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This moving novel by Luis Lopez Carrasco translated by Rosalind Harvey @grantabooks.bsky.social couldn't be more timely: peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/07/29/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The White Desert by Luis López Carrasco, translated by Rosalind Harvey
I read this collection of five interlinked stories while wildfires raged to the west of Madrid and it couldn’t be more timely. Tales of the daily lives and challenges for a group of young-ish Spani…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Women in Translation Month 26 is nearly upon us so no better time to keep Palestine in your thoughts. Read this @andotherstories.bsky.social peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/03/07/i...
peakreads.wordpress.com
International Booker Prize 2025 Longlist-The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem translated by Sinan Antoon
Shimon stands perplexed amid a sea of silent carnations on his flower farm. It’s 4 am and Maryam and her fellow workers from the Balata Refugee Camp haven’t turned up to work. He checks with the ca…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Calling all Germanists and historians! I can’t recommend highly enough the podcast Reichs and Republics where Katja Hoyer and Chris Dillon take us through key topics in recent German history. For more from Katja Hoyer do read her Beyond The Wall: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/07/23/b...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Beyond the Wall, East Germany 1949-1990 by Katja Hoyer
In this fascinating history of the 40 year life of the German Democratic Republic, Katja Hoyer aims to set the record straight. In the preface she says that reunification of East and West Germany i…
120
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
So sad to learn today that Slavenka Drakulic has died. I learnt so much about women in The Balkans from her essays-I’m going to seek out her fiction now. Thank you Slavenka.
000
Reposted by Mandy Wight
Kate Sotejeff-Wilson @katesw.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Back in Berlin, I was unleashed in Dussmann Friedrichstraße for several hours unattended 📚📚📚
A pile of books from Dussmann Friedrichstraße on the table, Finnish wild flowers behind
1151
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I really enjoyed The Gypsy Goddess liked the comment by @john-self.bsky.social that you may need a lie-down after reading peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/06/22/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Gypsy Goddess by Meena Kandasamy
I’m a great fan of Meena Kandasamy’s novels When I Hit You and Exquisite Cadavers. Her fourth book, Fieldwork as a Sex Object, is due out shortly, so before reading it I decided to go back to her d…
011
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Wonderful news that The Nights are Quiet in Tehran has been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize! It's an illuminating read about Iran. Warmest congratulations to Shida Bazyar, Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social and #ScribePublications. peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar translated by Ruth Martin.
In February 2024 I attended a book launch at London’s Goethe Institut where Shida Bazyar and her translator, Ruth Martin, presented her debut novel Sisters in Arms. I really enjoyed this book and w…
141
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
If you're planning a trip to Iceland, this book by Sarah Moss is a great place to start: peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/03/31/n...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Names for the Sea- Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss.
Sarah Moss is one of my favourite writers in English, (My Good Bright Wolf, The Tidal Zone, Ghost Wall, Summerwater), but it took a recent short trip to Iceland to remind me that she’d also spent t…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I loved this collection of short stories by Rhys Davies read for #ReadingWales26. He's truly a master of the form. peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/03/11/r...
peakreads.wordpress.com
#ReadingWales26 : Selected Stories by Rhys Davies-Library of Wales
Rhys Davies (1901- 1978) was born in the Rhondda, and though he lived most of his adult life in London, his novels and short stories are set mostly in the pit villages and surrounding countryside o…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
I enjoyed Alice Zeniter's latest novel, set in la Nouvelle Caledonie, a Pacific archipelago and French overseas territory, exploring questions of identity and belonging. peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/03/07/r...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Returning to New Caledonia- Frapper l’epopee by Alice Zeniter
I really enjoyed Alice Zeniter’s prize-winning novel The Art of Losing, so I’ve been looking forward to reading her next book, Frapper l’épopée. All the more so, as it’s set in the French overseas …
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
So pleased Shida Bazyar's novel about Iran translated by Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social is longlisted for the International Booker prize 2026. It couldn't be more timely. peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar translated by Ruth Martin.
In February 2024 I attended a book launch at London’s Goethe Institut where Shida Bazyar and her translator, Ruth Martin, presented her debut novel Sisters in Arms. I really enjoyed this book and w…
142
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Find out all about the gorgeous vanilla plant in this fascinating book from @bullaunpress.bsky.social #readindies peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/02/24/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Rarest Fruit by Gaёlle Bélem translated by Karen Fleetwood and Laetitia Saint-Loubert, published by Bullaun Press.
I’ve got a faible for Bullaun Press, an Irish independent press publishing literature in translation. I’ve reviewed several of their books here on Peak Reads (Forgottenness, Without Waking Up, What…
020
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
On this, the 4th anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, I’m recommending this book by Tanja Maljartschuk @bullaunpress.bsky.social peakreads.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/f...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartschuk, translated by Zenia Tompkins.
There are two parallel stories in Tanja Maljartschuk’s novel Forgottenness. It’s the story of Viacheslav Lypynskyi, born in 1882, an important figure in the early 20th century struggle for Ukrainia…
111
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
I read this book for #readindies in fabulous translation by @bskaret.bsky.social peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/02/21/r...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky, translated from the Russian by Bryan Karetnyk
It was the name Tolstoy that drew my attention to this title. I read War and Peace as a young person and it’s one of the great works of world literature that I often think about rereading. This edi…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
I read this for #readindies month and felt rather overwhelmed by the food : peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/02/16/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards
Rosa, the protagonist of this novel, likes to cook. At the start of this first person narrative she makes simple (by Italian standards) meals for her daughter, and neighbour, Tina. We learn she’s r…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
This is a compelling account of a relationship between two woman, not to mention a beautifully observed portrait of their beloved dog Viola peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Door by Magda Szabo
This is the first book I’ve read by Hungarian writer Marta Szabó. First published in Hungary in 1987, the novel was translated into English by Len Rix in 2005, and published in this Vintage edition…
110
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
I loved this wide-ranging collection of essays by Zadie Smith -the clarity of her thought and writing, peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/02/05/d...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Dead and Alive- Essays by Zadie Smith
I’ve only dipped my toe into the essay form up till now, the sum total of my essay reading being Jenny Erpenbeck’s Not a Novel, reviewed here at Peak Reads, and A Memoir of My Former Self by Hilary…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
I learned so much about Donbas and Ukraine’s eastern regions from this wonderful book, thank you @victoriadonovan.bsky.social peakreads.wordpress.com/2026/01/09/l...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Life in Spite of Everything-Tales from the Ukrainian East by Victoria Donovan.
Victoria Donovan first visited the Donbas area in Eastern Ukraine in 2019, and found herself going back there time and again. Originally from Cardiff, she felt some affinity to the landscape in the…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I am so thrilled to be reading Life in Spite of Everything @victoriadonovan.bsky.social and to be learning again about Mariupol and the Azovstal steelworks, first encountered in the work of Natascha Wodin www.asymptotejournal.com/fiction/the-...
asymptotejournal.com
The River and the Sea - Asymptote
I lived for a few years as a child by the small Franconian river called the Regnitz. We were moved there in 1951, from a camp for Displaced Persons to the four new tower blocks by the river. We were f...
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
This wonderful memoir is definitely one of my top books of 2025: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/12/20/m...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy’s most recent book is a memoir of her mother, Mary Roy, who died in 2022. Mary Roy was a formidable and extraordinary woman, who founded and led a progressive school in Kerala, India,…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
It's week 4 of #GermanLitMonth2025 peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/g...
peakreads.wordpress.com
German Lit Month 2025 Week 4-Das Liebespaar des Jahrhunderts-The Couple of the Century by Julia Schoch.
This week is supposed to be about writers from the former GDR. I can’t really categorise Julia Schoch as such. She was in her mid-teens at the time of reunification, and so has lived most of her li…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Week 3 of #GermanLitMonth and I'm reading Volker Weidermann on Thomas Mann: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/20/m...
peakreads.wordpress.com
German Lit Month 2025-Mann vom Meer-Thomas Mann, Man of the Sea, by Volker Weidermann.
Here I am again, reading around the great Thomas Mann, rather than tackling the work itself. But I couldn’t resist this book, recommended by danares.mag-blog, as I very much enjoyed Volker Weiderma…
021
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
It's Thomas Mann week in #germanlitmonth and I've read Norman Ohler's book on 'The Magic Mountain' peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/17/g...
peakreads.wordpress.com
German Lit Month 2025- Week 3- Thomas Mann. Der Zauberberg, die ganze Geschichte by Norman Ohler.
It feels like Thomas Mann has been on my mind this whole past year—not surprisingly, as 2025 is the 150th anniversary since his birth, and readers have been looking again at the man and his work. F…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
I loved this book about gardens and so much more : peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing.
Contrary to what the title suggests, this is not just a book about gardens or gardening. It is certainly both those things. But it’s also an exploration of cultural, literary and political ideas ar…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
In week 2 of #germanlitmonth it's all about The City. I've read this beautiful novella set in Rome by FCDelius translated by Jamie Bulloch : peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/g...
peakreads.wordpress.com
German Lit Month 2025- Week 2- The City-Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by FC Delius, translated by Jamie Bulloch
What better book to suit this week’s German Lit Month theme than this short novella, set in Rome? It takes place over one hour in January 1943 and is an inner monologue told by a young woman walkin…
012
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
My first book for #germanlitmonth. I've not followed the suggested schedule as this was calling me from the bookcase and I'm so pleased to have read it: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/11/03/g...
peakreads.wordpress.com
German Literature Month XV- Inheritance ( Erbgut) by Marlen Hobrack
Many of us in mid-life go through the sad business of clearing out a deceased parent’s home. Few will encounter a challenge as overwhelming as that faced by Marlen Hobrack when her mother died: she…
031
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
I've just read the latest unsettling collection from Samanta Schweblin: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/g...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell.
I’ve admired Samanta Schweblin’s previous writing—the novella Fever Dream, the short story collection A Mouthful of Birds, then the novel Little Eyes and the short stories Seven Empty Houses both r…
030
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
I can't remember what put me onto this novel but having read it I'm a dedicated Alice Zeniter fan and eagerly waiting for more work of hers to be translated @terribleman.com peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/l...
peakreads.wordpress.com
L’Art de Perdre-The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter translated by Frank Wyne.
This multi-generational family novel tells the story of a family’s transition from Algeria to France in 1962 when Algeria gained independence from France. The novel spans the period from the early …
021
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
'Endling' by Maria Reva is about snails and brides and how to write about war. It's a great and a sobering read : peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/09/28/e...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Endling by Maria Reva
This engaging novel, long listed for the Booker Prize 2025, tells the story of three women working for the Romeo meets Yulia Bridal Agency in Ukraine. They meet just days before the full-scale inva…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
The world of 1348 is not as far away as you might think: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
To Calais in Ordinary Time by James Meek.
I’m not a great reader of historical fiction, though I hugely enjoyed Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll,  and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Those novels were set in the Thirty Years’ War of the 1600…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
I've just read this moving account of Didier Eribon's mother in old age-her time in a nursing home, their relationship, his appreciation of what she did for him: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/09/05/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Life, Old Age and Death of a Working-Class Woman by Didier Eribon, translated by Michael Lucey.
Didier Eribon is probably best known to Anglophone readers for his memoir Return to Reims. There, he writes about his re-engagement with his family after decades of estrangement, in which he moved …
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Sorry-just one day late for August's #Womenintranslation25 month- Natalia Ginzburg's last novel: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg translated by Dick Davis-Women in Translation Month 2025.
I have to say that when I started reading this novel for Women in Translation Month, I did think the unthinkable: can one have a little too much of Natalia Ginzburg? It’s been, after all, barely tw…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
I enjoyed this translation from Welsh of Kate Roberts’ Feet in Chains read for #WITMonth2025 peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/f...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Feet in Chains by Kate Roberts, translated by Katie Gramich, read for Women in Translation Month 2025.
The Welsh writer Kate Roberts was born in Caernarfonshire in 1891 and brought up in the slate-quarrying area of North-West Wales. She knew well, therefore, the landscape and the world of the quarry…
001
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Katja Hoyer visits Guben in East Germany to see if differences still persist between East and West http//:www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002hkw3?partner=uk.co.bbc
bbc.co.uk
Currently - Germany: United and Divided - BBC Sounds
Historian Katja Hoyer investigates East German disillusion 35 years after reunification.
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
I've just read this moving novel for #WITMonth in stunning translation by Sam Taylor: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/24/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Sam Taylor.
I chose this novel for WITMonth because I loved Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore. The Heart touched me even more and in a more profound place. It’s not a romance, as yo…
131
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
I visited Hay last week and just had to stock up on Welsh writing.
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Still loving Natalia Ginzburg, read for #Womenintranslation Month2025 peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/v...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Voices in the Evening by Natalia Ginzburg translated by D. M. Low
It’s been such a joy to read Natalia Ginzburg again for Women in Translation Month—though odd to call it a joy really when, as in so many of her books, her characters’ desire for love and connectio…
011
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
This was my first book read for #WomeninTranslation month 2025-an excellent, moving, family novel set in Iran and Germany, told in different voices: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar translated by Ruth Martin.
In February 2024 I attended a book launch at London’s Goethe Institut where Shida Bazyar and her translator, Ruth Martin, presented her debut novel Sisters in Arms. I really enjoyed this book and w…
195
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
So great to hear @frankcottrellboyce.bsky.social on @bbcradio4.bsky.social talk about Norman Lewis’ book Naples 44 as the book he would gift. Such a powerful shattering book about that great city at the end of the war.
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Before I start on my #WomeninTranslation month books I had to read this- it’s a worthy winner of the #2025 Women’s Prize peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/t...
peakreads.wordpress.com
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
The Safekeep, which has just won the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, draws you in from the very beginning. Isabel finds a broken piece of ceramic under the roots of a dead gourd amongst the vegetab…
010
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
So this is my reading pile for #WomeninTranslation month 2025. Aiming high.
021
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
This account of meeting an unknown sister got right under my skin: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/07/29/d...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Das Vorkommnis- The Event by Julia Schoch
This short, concise novel begins with the eponymous event. The first person narrator, a writer, has just finished a reading of her new novel in the arts centre of a North German town. She’s sitting…
000
Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Katja Hoyer's engaging history of East Germany filled in many gaps for me and has a place on the shelf of every historian, Germanist, or indeed general reader: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/07/23/b...
peakreads.wordpress.com
Beyond the Wall, East Germany 1949-1990 by Katja Hoyer
In this fascinating history of the 40 year life of the German Democratic Republic, Katja Hoyer aims to set the record straight. In the preface she says that reunification of East and West Germany i…
000
Reposted by Mandy Wight
Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
“We are modernising our approach to international development” claims Govt. No, you’re eviscerating it, with your own impact assessment showing most vulnerable communities hit hardest, increasing suffering & driving global insecurity. Ministers should hang their heads in shame @oxfamgb.bsky.social
theguardian.com
UK’s aid cuts ‘will hit children’s education and raise risk of death’
Cutting aid budget to 0.3% of national income will hurt many African countries, says FCDO impact assessment
623187