Alafair Burke’s The Wife Pushes Readers To Ask Themselves “Where Do You Draw The Line?”

  “…Alafair Burke has the intuitive ability to up-cycle genre trends, cherry-picking the best elements from an abundance of novels and current events, and then transforming them into something that still manages to feel wholly original. She is a master of her craft…” I know this is not the usual type of book (i.e. - not a translation) you expect to see reviewed here, but … Continue reading Alafair Burke’s The Wife Pushes Readers To Ask Themselves “Where Do You Draw The Line?”

The Case of Lisandra P. by Hélène Grémillon, translated by Alison Anderson - #WITMonth 2016

Title: The Case of Lisandra P. Author: Hélène Grémillon Translator: Alison Anderson Publisher: Penguin Books, New York (2016) ISBN: 978 0 14 312658 4   When writing #WITMonth posts, my first instinct is to spotlight only amazing books. And while those books definitely exist, it started to seem unfair to hold a writer to a ridiculously high standard because of her gender. It is perfectly … Continue reading The Case of Lisandra P. by Hélène Grémillon, translated by Alison Anderson - #WITMonth 2016

The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Raphaël Jerusalmy, tr. Howard Curtis

Title: The Brotherhood of Book Hunters Author: Raphaël Jerusalmy Translator: Howard Curtis Publisher: Europa Editions, New York (2014) ISBN: 978 1 60945 230 8 The eighteenth century romance novel tradition with its lush descriptions of landscapes and settings is just one of the many threads Raphaël Jerusalmy weaves into a novel which features the 15th century French poet and rogue Francois Villon, a … Continue reading The Brotherhood of Book Hunters by Raphaël Jerusalmy, tr. Howard Curtis

The Genius of Georges Simenon - continued

2 The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, translated by Linda Coverdale and published by Penguin Books, features Simenon’s Inspector Maigret. A Parisian detective who starred in an impressive seventy-five novels & twenty-eight short stories. Of the three Simenon books I’m reviewing The Hanged Man… is the most conventional - being a fairly straight forward detective novel. In it the off-duty Inspector Maigret spots a suspicious looking man at the train station … Continue reading The Genius of Georges Simenon - continued

The Genius of Georges Simenon - Part 1

Title: The Strangers In the House Translator: Geoffrey Sainsbury, with revisions by David Watson & others Publisher: New York Review Books, New York ISBN: 978 1 59017 194 3   Title: The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien Translator: Linda Coverdale Publisher: Penguin Books, London ISBN: 978 0 141 39345 2   Title: The President Translator: Daphne Woodward Publisher: Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn ISBN: 978 1 935554 … Continue reading The Genius of Georges Simenon - Part 1