PSR's Book Blog

Literary fiction

Today

November

06

J.A. Baker

July2018

28

Raptors

Toon Tellegenwas a diamond in the dirtfound among the library for sale booksToon Tellegenmakes silk purses out of sows' earsthat is to sayhe takes popular phrases and clichesa...

Raptors - Toon Tellegen, Judith Wilkinson

finished reading:

Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino, William Weaver

Marcovaldo Italo Calvino, William Weaver

July2018

05

R.S. Thomas

I bought this edition of R.S. Thomas' 'Selected Poems' when it came out in the mid-1990s - around the time that the Welsh former priest was nominated for the Nobel Prize - and...

R.S. Thomas - R.S. Thomas, Anthony Thwaite

May2018

15

finished reading:

Distant Star - Roberto Bolaño

Distant Star Roberto Bolaño

May2018

7

finished reading:

R.S. Thomas - R.S. Thomas, Anthony Thwaite

R.S. Thomas R.S. Thomas, Anthony Thwaite

May2018

05

Amulet

This novella/short novel takes an incident from Bolaño's brilliant 'The Savage Detectives' and weaves a new tale from it. The incident in question concerns the narrator, Auxil...

Amulet - Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews

April2018

30

finished reading:

By Night In Chile - Roberto Bolaño

By Night In Chile Roberto Bolaño

September2017

12

The Kreutzer Sonata

Well, what a strange little book this turned out to be from the master. Is it a good read? Yes, it is. Structured around a series of short chapters and incidents, it's just ri...

The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy

September2017

06

I Refuse: A Novel

This is the fifth novel of Petterson's that I've read, and it maintains the very high standard of his oeuvre, from my perspective. "I Refuse" deals with growing up, friendship...

I Refuse: A Novel - Per Petterson, Don Bartlett

July2017

06

Portrait of a Man

It's Georges Perec - author of my very favourite book of all time - so it has to be good, doesn't it? And indeed it is. I'd read about this novel - Perec's second, but never p...

Portrait of a Man - Georges Perec, David Bellos

May2017

10

House Mother Normal

In which Johnson has lots of fun with constraints and toilet humour... Apparently, the structure isn't new. It had been deployed at least four decades before in 'Tea with Mrs ...

House Mother Normal - B.S. Johnson

January2017

10

Trawl

In his third novel, the experimental novelist (a term he came to dislike), pursues relentlessly his mission to write truth rather than fiction. Largely a roman à clef, then, i...

Trawl - B.S. Johnson

April2015

14

finished reading:

London Fields - Martin Amis

London Fields Martin Amis

November2014

9

finished reading:

Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker

Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker

October2014

20

finished reading:

Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel

Sputnik Sweetheart Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel

October2014

05

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

This was every bit as good as the last time that I read it. For me, this is an 'event book', one of those novels that divides reading into a before and after. Wikipedia quotes...

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino

September2014

11

Snow Country

I read Kawabata's 'The Master of Go' and rather enjoyed it. This short novel I admired rather than enjoyed. In theory, I should have loved it as it contained all the right ing...

Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata, Edward G. Seidensticker

July2014

06

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I've just read this to my two kids. They loved the story and I had a ball making up voices for the characters (you should hear my Kansas accent...). Given that it's over a cen...

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum

May2014

21

finished reading:

Mr Palomar - Italo Calvino

Mr Palomar Italo Calvino

May2014

10

finished reading:

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino

May2014

09

Slowness

Okay, cards on the table time... I'd read the three books for which Milan Kundera is best known - 'The Joke', 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' and 'The Unbearable Lightne...

Slowness - Milan Kundera, Linda Asher

January1970

01

Adam, One Afternoon

The Vintage edition that I read was in reality an early Calvino short story collection with the addition of the novella, 'The Argentine Ant'. Aspects of the oblique and playfu...

Adam, One Afternoon - Italo Calvino

Kafka on the Shore

I want to like Murakami. My writing and reading friends keep on telling me how good he is. First they recommend this title, then that. I try them out, making a genuine effort ...

Kafka on the Shore - Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami

Cosmicomics

I've ranted before about the star system here on Goodreads (all the more appropriate à propos 'Cosmicomics' with its cosmological concerns). Compared to much else out there, t...

Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino

Marcovaldo

Like Borges, Calvino's metier was the short form - short stories and novellas. Even his "novels" - 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller', 'The Castle of Crossed Destinies' 'Inv...

Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino, William Weaver

Distant Star

It's Roberto Bolaño, but only three-star Bolaño...Let it be known that I love this writer's works, and 'The Savage Detectives', in particular. However... this novella has its ...

Distant Star - Roberto Bolaño

Life: A User's Manual

My favourite book of all time... Everything a novel should or ever could be. Big characters, ripping yarns, wonderful descriptions, word play, structural experimentation and a...

Life: A User's Manual - Georges Perec, David Bellos

By Night In Chile

And so I move from a book for which there were three reviews (Ivan Klima's 'My First Loves') to this with over 700... Strange how acclaim accumulates in reading circles - rock...

By Night In Chile - Roberto Bolaño

Animal Farm

I'm not actually going to write a review, as such. What could I say about this peerless book that hasn't been said before? As a satirical allegory and analysis of human power ...

Animal Farm - George Orwell

House of Leaves

I can't disagree with Mr MJ Nicholls that 'House of Leaves' is nothing more than a glorified ghost story - ah, but what a ghost story... The playing around with page layout an...

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

My First Loves (Penguin International Writers)

This is the fourth of Klíma's books that I've read and it maintains the standard of work I encountered in the others. It comprises four tales, the second and third of which ar...

My First Loves (Penguin International Writers) - Ivan Klíma

Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi

In which the genius of innovative fiction and his great friend amuse themselves through the medium of surreal detective fiction... It wouldn't be everyone's idea of a good rea...

Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi - Norman Thomas di Giovanni, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges

Blow-Up and Other Stories

The fantastic and the mundane combine in 'Blow-Up and Other Stories', often possessing the scorpion's sting in their tales. The best stories here make for a memorable collecti...

Blow-Up and Other Stories - Paul Blackburn, Julio Cortázar

A Death in the Family

Revelatory memoir is more the stuff of salacious serialisation in the Sunday newspapers than of breakthrough in literary approach. Anyone believing the hyperbole of the endors...

A Death in the Family - Karl Ove Knausgård, Don Bartlett

Sputnik Sweetheart

So this was the fourth recommendation of Murakami that I've read... When will I learn? At this rate, I shall have ended up reading the entire oeuvre of an author for whom I ha...

Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel

A Summer Affair

I discovered Klíma by accident. No one I know has ever mentioned his name to me. His books tend not to be in the stores of English retailers. And then I found a couple of his ...

A Summer Affair - Ewald Osers

The Rack

This novel is quite exceptional, a totally involving, emerging experience about life in the shadow of existence-threatening, debilitating disease. Try it, if you're feeling st...

The Rack - A.E. Ellis

Old Masters

In which we get the rambling thoughts of Reger, an 82-year-old music critic, whose irascibility is only matched by his erudition, as he sits in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Muse...

Old Masters - Thomas Bernhard, Ewald Osers

The Stepford Wives

This isn't the sort of thing that I usually read. I'd seen the film, of course, and scant books often make good films. I picked up a copy in a remaindered bookshop for 50 penc...

The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin

The Tin Men

All you need to know is... this is one of the funniest books ever written.

The Tin Men - Michael Frayn

Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939

I'm going out on a limb here... This is the most useful guide you'll find to reading material in the English-speaking world in the period from the outbreak of WW2 to the year ...

Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 - Anthony Burgess

The Place of the Lion

What can I say about this deeply odd book?I'd read a couple of Charles Williams' novels along time ago. They were out of print and it was fun tracking them down, before the in...

The Place of the Lion - Charles Williams

The City and the City

I had mixed feelings about this book. I read it because I'd heard much praise poured upon the author and because comparisons had been made between it and Jan Morris's 'Hav', a...

The City and the City - China Miéville

Mr Palomar

I'd started reading this book a long time ago but didn't get very far for reasons long since forgotten. Having just re-read the brilliant 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller',...

Mr Palomar - Italo Calvino

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The Peregrine by J.A. Baker

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