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Midyear Reading Challenge report

As a follow up to this week’s Musing Mondays, I figured this would be a good time to check on how I’m doing on the reading challenges I adopted for the year. So far, more than so good. I’m actually one book shy of completing all three. Here’s the tally so far:

Notable Books Challenge […]

Book Review: God’s Mercy by Kerstin Ekman

Sense of place is not just a combination of geography and culture, it is a synergy of the two. Swedish author Kerstin Ekman doesn’t seek to describe sense of place in her novel God’s Mercy. She does something far more difficult. Sense of place so permeates the novel it moves from being a setting to […]

Book Review: The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

Worried about retirement or maintaining your standard of living in your “old age”? The near-future country in which Swedish author Ninni Holmqvist’s first novel, The Unit, is set has a comfortable future in store for many women 50 and older and men 60 and older.

Imagine this: Your own, fully furnished apartment in a complex […]

Book Review: Detective Story by Imre Kertész

Orwellian. Kafkaesque. Both terms are universally recognized shorthand for certain types of tales. Yet the terms are bandied about all too often. While the title of Detective Story by Imre Kertész calls to mind some noir novel, it is far more faithful to Orwell and Kafka than most other books for which those authors are […]

Book Review: Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

It’s what every reader longs for but experiences all too rarely. Just a few pages into a book and you realize there’s something special in your hands. German author Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone is just such a book. And what makes it perhaps that much more remarkable is that it is now being […]