Oldladyvoice

Read 15/02/2022-18/02/2022

Rating 4 stars

Over the border from France to Spain in my European literary tour and a recent subscription book from And Other Stories. Oldladyvoice is the debut novel by Elisa Victoria, and follows nine-year-old Marina’s adventures one summer. Her mother is ill in hospital and Marina is looked after by her grandmother.

Set in Seville and Marbella, the story balances Marina’s anxiety about her mother’s health and its impact on her own future with the sweetness and hilarity of a girl on the cusp of double figures in age, who is still a child but not quite a child, too.

Fatale

Read 14/02/2022-15/02/2022

Rating 5 stars

I’ve had Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale on my Kindle since 2016. It was about time I read it, and I’ve chosen it for the French leg of my European book tour. It follows the fortunes of a young widow who conceals her identity to take on the role of killer-for-hire.

On Literature

Read 30/01/2022-12/02/2022

Rating 4 stars

I’ve had a library detour and a work detour, but I’m back on my European literary tour, crossing the border from Joseph Roth’s Austria to Umberto Eco’s Italy.

I’ve read five of Eco’s seven novels, from The Name of the Rose through to The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and one of his non-fiction books, Travels in Hyperreality.

I could have chosen The Prague Cemetery for this stop on my tour, but its subject matter felt a little heavy, so I plumped for another of his non-fiction works, On Literature.

Six Degrees of Separation: From No One Is Talking About This to Pachinko

January disappeared quickly, which is most unlike it. Here we are at the first Saturday in February, which makes it time for Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

This month, Kate has chosen a recent novel that made the Booker shortlist last year, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. I haven’t read it myself, but I have read other people’s opinions of it.