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grantrintoul.bsky.social
@grantrintoul.bsky.social
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jacquiwine.bsky.social
New on the blog today, my thoughts on JUST A LITTLE DINNER by Cécile Tlili (tr. Katherine Gregor).

An intriguing chamber piece in which two couples dine together in a Paris apartment. Tensions abound, dynamics shift & life-changing decisions soon follow. 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/j...
Just a Little Dinner by Cécile Tlili (tr. Katherine Gregor)
Established in 2023, Foundry Editions are still relatively new on the UK publishing scene, but I’ve already noticed their books in several outlets in London, largely due to the striking blue-and-wh…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:16 AM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
I heard William Letford read when his first collection, Bevel, came out in 2012 and last week - such a great poet and performer.
November 26, 2025 at 4:28 PM
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grantrintoul.bsky.social
For #GermanLitMonth, a writer who deserves more attention, Gert Hofmann, and his novel, Our Conquest, exploring the end of the second world war through the eyes of a child:
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/25/o...
Our Conquest
Gert Hofmann’s novel Our Conquest remains some of the earliest of his work we have in English, originally published in 1984 and translated by Christopher Middleton in 1991. Its focus is one we see …
1streading.wordpress.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:29 PM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
For #GermanLitMonth, a writer who deserves more attention, Gert Hofmann, and his novel, Our Conquest, exploring the end of the second world war through the eyes of a child:
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/25/o...
Our Conquest
Gert Hofmann’s novel Our Conquest remains some of the earliest of his work we have in English, originally published in 1984 and translated by Christopher Middleton in 1991. Its focus is one we see …
1streading.wordpress.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:29 PM
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jacquiwine.bsky.social
New on the blog today, I've written about LADY L. by Romain Gary.

A charming, hugely enjoyable story of love, long-held secrets & railing against the establishment, in which personal desires are pitted against political principles & beliefs. I loved it! 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/l...
Lady L. by Romain Gary
Twice winner of the Prix Goncourt (once under a pen name), Romain Gary was a French writer, diplomat, film director and WW2 pilot of great repute. His highly engaging memoir, Promise at Dawn, is by…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 23, 2025 at 7:15 AM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
What a great night in Lochgelly yesterday with Stanza and @hameisharts.bsky.social - poet William Letford, the Coaltown Daisies and a whole lot more!
November 22, 2025 at 3:01 PM
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radzpandit.bsky.social
My new blog post on THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn - a dark, haunting novella of witchcraft and witch hunts, power and misogyny, and how women are scapegoated. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/t...
The Wax Child – Olga Ravn (tr. Martin Aitken)
Olga Ravn created a stir with the publication of her novella, The Employees, in 2020, which was subsequently shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. I’ve yet to read it, but the latest…
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:38 PM
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grantrintoul.bsky.social
My latest #GermanLitMonth review is the newly translated Woman in the Pillory (by Lucy Jones) from East German author Brigitte Reimann, about a love affair between a German woman and a Russian POW.
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/w...
Woman in the Pillory
The work of Brigitte Reimann, an East German writer who published for twenty years between 1953 and her early death in 1973, was largely unknown in the English-speaking world until the translation …
1streading.wordpress.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:08 PM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
My latest #GermanLitMonth review is the newly translated Woman in the Pillory (by Lucy Jones) from East German author Brigitte Reimann, about a love affair between a German woman and a Russian POW.
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/w...
Woman in the Pillory
The work of Brigitte Reimann, an East German writer who published for twenty years between 1953 and her early death in 1973, was largely unknown in the English-speaking world until the translation …
1streading.wordpress.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted
jacquiwine.bsky.social
New on the blog today, I've written about CHILD OF ALL NATIONS by Irmgard Keun (tr. Michael Hofmann).

An eye-opening window into the uncertain existence of a family of German refugees, forced to leave their homeland for political reasons. #GermanLitMonth 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/18/c...
Child of All Nations by Irmgard Keun (tr. Michael Hofmann)
Born in Berlin in 1905, the German writer Irmgard Keun rose to prominence in the early 1930s with her striking novels Gilgi, One of Us (1931) and The Artificial Silk Girl (1932), both of which I lo…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:14 AM
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radzpandit.bsky.social
My new blog post on Alexander Baron's brilliant, entertaining boarding-house novel, THE LOWLIFE.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/t...
The Lowlife – Alexander Baron
I have read some wonderful books published by Faber Editions in the past – The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford, Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks, and The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger, to name a…
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:02 PM
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grantrintoul.bsky.social
Just out from Peirene Press, a coming-of-age story from Colombia, Lina Munar Guevara's Imagine Breaking Everything (translated by Ellen Jones):
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/i...
Imagine Breaking Everything
Coming-of-age novels in which the central character escapes from poverty, or some other form of challenging background, often present a sense of doubleness, where the protagonist feels as if they a…
1streading.wordpress.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
Bottom's Dream. In fact, it is the coffee table.
November 14, 2025 at 9:32 PM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
Just out from Peirene Press, a coming-of-age story from Colombia, Lina Munar Guevara's Imagine Breaking Everything (translated by Ellen Jones):
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/i...
Imagine Breaking Everything
Coming-of-age novels in which the central character escapes from poverty, or some other form of challenging background, often present a sense of doubleness, where the protagonist feels as if they a…
1streading.wordpress.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
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roughghosts.bsky.social
"A nameless place – a place of nothing. There is a garden outside, but it is a garden without seasons, where nobody walks, where no one listens to the sound of birds."

In a nameless place: some notes on reading Anna Kavan’s Asylum Piece — Anna Evans minorliteratures.com/2025/11/13/i...
In a nameless place: some notes on reading Anna Kavan’s Asylum Piece — Anna Evans
It was the woolgathering, of course, the preoccupation with non-human things, the interest in the wrong place… What I think of is fragments dispersed by the wind and left behind. A word that conjur…
minorliteratures.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Reposted
jacquiwine.bsky.social
New on the blog today, I've written about the TIRZAH GARWOOD: Beyond Ravilious exhibition at Dulwich PG, which showcased Garwood as a highly talented artist in her own right.

One of my favourite exhibitions in recent years! #NonFictionNovember2025 #BookSky

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/t...
Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious – exhibition and accompanying book
Something a little different from me today – another post in an occasional series of pieces about the art books I’ve accumulated over the past few years, mostly from gallery visits in London and th…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:17 AM
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radzpandit.bsky.social
Blurring the boundaries between prose and poetry, THE BOAT IN THE EVENING by Tarjei Vesaas explores the mysteries of the natural world and man's relationship with landscape. Translated by Elizabeth Rokkan. My new post here:
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/t...
THE BOAT IN THE EVENING by Tarjei Vesaas. Translated by Elizabeth Rokkan. Peter Owen Classics.
November 12, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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kaggsy59.bsky.social
On the Ramblings today - a remarkable new book from @twistedspoon.bsky.social which also works for #GLM2025 and #NovNov25! More here: kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/11/11/h...
“He was done with everything now” #twistedspoonpress
Twisted Spoon Press are a Prague-based publisher who produce a fascinating range of books, and I’ve written about a good number of titles here on the Ramblings. Their titles are often quirky,…
kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:25 AM
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grantrintoul.bsky.social
My second review for #GermanLitMonth is from another of my favourite German-language writers, Peter Stamm - In a Deep Blue Hour translated by Michael Hofmann:
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/i...
In a Deep Blue Hour
In a Deep Blue Hour, published originally in 2023 and now translated into English by Michael Hofmann, is the latest novel from Swiss writer Peter Stamm. It begins with the narrator, Andrea’s, attem…
1streading.wordpress.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:33 PM
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marinasofia.bsky.social
New review today: A strange little tale for #GermanLitMonth and #NovNov25: Paulus Hochgatterer findingtimetowrite.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/g...
#GermanLitMonth and #NovNov25: Paulus Hochgatterer
Paulus Hochgatterer: The Day My Grandfather Was a Hero, transl. Jamie Bulloch, MacLehose Press, 2020. You might be familiar with Austrian author (and psychiatrist) Paulus Hochgatterer from his crim…
findingtimetowrite.wordpress.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:43 AM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
My second review for #GermanLitMonth is from another of my favourite German-language writers, Peter Stamm - In a Deep Blue Hour translated by Michael Hofmann:
1streading.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/i...
In a Deep Blue Hour
In a Deep Blue Hour, published originally in 2023 and now translated into English by Michael Hofmann, is the latest novel from Swiss writer Peter Stamm. It begins with the narrator, Andrea’s, attem…
1streading.wordpress.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:33 PM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
November reading - this month's Maigret was a little disappointing as its set-up seemed very similar to the previous novel, Maigret's Pickpocket - an obvious suspect that Maigret refuses to charge.
Maigret's Childhood Friend by Georges Simenon
November 9, 2025 at 10:01 AM
grantrintoul.bsky.social
Latest book club read - loved the language but the novel itself is rather meandering and the lack of female characters glaring. I suspect its classic status raised expectations.
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
November 9, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted
jacquiwine.bsky.social
New on the blog today, I've written about CROOKED CROSS by Sally Carson.

A brilliant, terrifying novel about the rise of Nazism, the falling apart of a country’s codes of decency & the moral fortitude required to oppose persecution. Frighteningly timely. 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/c...
Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
For a novel first published in 1934, Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross feels remarkably timely, charting, as it does, the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s, the falling apart of a country’s fundamental …
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Reposted
radzpandit.bsky.social
My new blog post on one of the best books I've read this year - INDEPENDENT PEOPLE by Haldór Laxness. Translated from the Icelandic by J.A. Thompson. 🐑❄️👻
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/07/i...
Independent People – Haldór Laxness (tr. J. A. Thompson)
Two years ago, I read and loved Salka Valka, the novel that introduced me to the magic of Haldór Laxness and found a place on My Best Books of 2023 list. Regarded as one of the greatest writers of …
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
November 7, 2025 at 8:54 AM