Category: Biography

Biography, Non-Fiction

If Only She’d Been Prettier… Charlotte Brontë & The Male Gaze

I never liked Mr. Rochester. His high-handed behavior and moodiness with Jane Eyre. His sneering treatment of his young ward, Adèle. And his final, obscene pretense that he locked away his mad wife for her sake rather than his own convenience (with all that land and money he couldn’t have had a small cottage built where she could have been kept in relative comfort?). Even when … Continue reading If Only She’d Been Prettier… Charlotte Brontë & The Male Gaze

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Biography, Challenge, Editorial, Fiction, Literary Awards, News, Translation, Update

Random Updates: What I’m Reading, WIT Month Cometh, Summer Holiday Reading & Two Translation Awards Get Together

I’m currently enjoying The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Raphaël Jerusalmy – a swashbuckling Alexander Dumas kind of tale translated from the French by Howard Curtis.  It’s completely charming!  The two main characters remind me quite a bit of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser.  Jerusalmy has taken what’s best about sword & sorcery fiction and moved it into a historical setting – 15th century … Continue reading Random Updates: What I’m Reading, WIT Month Cometh, Summer Holiday Reading & Two Translation Awards Get Together

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Biography, Literary Awards, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Translation

Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French by Sara Meli Ansari

Title: Letter to Jimmy Author: Alain Mabanckou Translator: Sara Meli Ansari Publisher: Soft Skull Press, Berkeley (2014) ISBN: 978 1 59376 601 6 There has long been a  tendency in the West to over-simplify African nations. The most obvious example  being the habit of dispensing with identifying the 56 countries which comprise the continent as individual nations and instead referring to them unilaterally as “Africa”. … Continue reading Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French by Sara Meli Ansari

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Audio, Biography, History, Non-Fiction, Podcast

The Sun King by Nancy Mitford (audio, narrated by Charlton Griffin)

Earlier this month I was invited by Trevor of the Mookse and the Gripes to be a guest on Episode 6 of his (and his brother Brian’s) monthly podcast.  The book under discussion:  The NYRB Classics edition of The Sun King by Nancy Mitford. To begin with – I am fascinated by the Mitfords.  Something you may have caught on to if you listened in … Continue reading The Sun King by Nancy Mitford (audio, narrated by Charlton Griffin)

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Audio, Biography, Memoir, Non-Fiction

Must You Go, My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser (audiobook)

If there’s one thing you walk away with after reading Antonia Fraser’s memoir Must You Go, My Life with Harold Pinter, it’s that she and her second husband Harold Pinter were deeply in love.  Reading a memoir that doesn’t focus exclusively on tribulations its author has overcome is refreshing.  Remarkable, even.  Fraser has chosen to share what appears to be the happiest period of her … Continue reading Must You Go, My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser (audiobook)

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