Radz Pandit
@radzpandit.bsky.social
Avid reader, book reviewer & amateur book photographer. I write about books on my blog Radhika’s Reading Retreat. Love art and travel too.
Website: https://readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
Also on: linktr.ee/radzpandit
Website: https://readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
Also on: linktr.ee/radzpandit
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Radz Pandit
@radzpandit.bsky.social
· Dec 17
These are MY BEST BOOKS OF 2025 featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Anita Brookner, Dino Buzzati, Jiří Weil, Han Kang, Caroline Blackwood and more. New blog post here:
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/m...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/m...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
My new blog post on MAKESHIFT by Sarah Campion, another terrific novel from the Recovered Books series.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
February 12, 2026 at 8:38 PM
My new blog post on MAKESHIFT by Sarah Campion, another terrific novel from the Recovered Books series.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
My new blog post on MAKESHIFT by Sarah Campion, another terrific novel from the Recovered Books series.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
February 12, 2026 at 8:38 PM
My new blog post on MAKESHIFT by Sarah Campion, another terrific novel from the Recovered Books series.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
@neglectedbooks.com
New on my blog today, I've written about Sarah Campion's MAKESHIFT, an excellent, absorbing novel that captures a German Jewish woman's life in exile in the 1930s when the Nazis rose to power.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
Makeshift – Sarah Campion
Makeshift by Sarah Campion is an absorbing and finely wrought novel about a German Jewish woman in exile, tracing her quest for anchor and identity in the ominous years preceding the Second World War,...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
February 12, 2026 at 8:15 PM
New on my blog today, I've written about Sarah Campion's MAKESHIFT, an excellent, absorbing novel that captures a German Jewish woman's life in exile in the 1930s when the Nazis rose to power.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/m...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
New from @faberbooks.bsky.social editions, the first appearance of Swedish writer Brigiita Trotzig in English (translated by Saskia Vogel), Queen:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/q...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/q...
Queen
Brigitta Trotzig is a Swedish writer who published novels in her homeland for almost fifty years – the first in 1951, the last in 2000. Now, fifteen years after her death, we can finally read her w…
1streading.wordpress.com
February 12, 2026 at 2:23 PM
New from @faberbooks.bsky.social editions, the first appearance of Swedish writer Brigiita Trotzig in English (translated by Saskia Vogel), Queen:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/q...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/q...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
“…[my mother] felt her drawing-room pretty, and so it was. It smelt lovely, too, more like a garden than a room, and since most of its untidiness came from the litter of books on chair arms, foot-stools, and occasional tables, it was an agreeable room to be in.” (p44) #NYRBWomen26
February 6, 2026 at 5:29 PM
“…[my mother] felt her drawing-room pretty, and so it was. It smelt lovely, too, more like a garden than a room, and since most of its untidiness came from the litter of books on chair arms, foot-stools, and occasional tables, it was an agreeable room to be in.” (p44) #NYRBWomen26
Reposted by Radz Pandit
“That accumulation of books silting up the flower-free surfaces in the house…I owe to my grandfathers. Both were men who took it for granted that a gentleman should have a good library…they considered a house without books in it uncivilized.” (p44) #NYRBWomen26
February 6, 2026 at 5:43 PM
“That accumulation of books silting up the flower-free surfaces in the house…I owe to my grandfathers. Both were men who took it for granted that a gentleman should have a good library…they considered a house without books in it uncivilized.” (p44) #NYRBWomen26
"Suddenly all I see is oppression and hate and suffering, so much suffering… A few hundred thousand. As if the number mattered! If so much as one person is suffering unjustly, and I can put an end to it, and the only reason I don’t is because I’m a coward and prefer peace and quiet, then…"
February 7, 2026 at 5:55 PM
"Suddenly all I see is oppression and hate and suffering, so much suffering… A few hundred thousand. As if the number mattered! If so much as one person is suffering unjustly, and I can put an end to it, and the only reason I don’t is because I’m a coward and prefer peace and quiet, then…"
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Big fan of this title page for EF Benson’s Spook Stories (1928)
February 6, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Big fan of this title page for EF Benson’s Spook Stories (1928)
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Hungarian Lit month at Winston's Dad - some book recommandations bookaroundthecorner.com/2026/02/07/h...
Hungarian Lit month at Winston’s Dad – some book recommandations
Somehow I missed the announcement that Stu at Winstonsdad is hosting Hungarian Lit Month in February. We’re already the 7th of the month, there’s not much time to read and write about H…
bookaroundthecorner.com
February 7, 2026 at 7:57 AM
Hungarian Lit month at Winston's Dad - some book recommandations bookaroundthecorner.com/2026/02/07/h...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
For @stujallen.bsky.social's Hungarian Literature Month. George Konrad's The Case Worker (translated by Paul Aston), possibly the most depressing novel I have ever read:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/t...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/t...
The Case Worker
When Hungarian writer George Konrád, his sister and his parents returned to their hometown of Berettyóújfalu in 1945 they were the only Jewish family to have survived the war intact. Their troubles…
1streading.wordpress.com
February 6, 2026 at 7:53 PM
For @stujallen.bsky.social's Hungarian Literature Month. George Konrad's The Case Worker (translated by Paul Aston), possibly the most depressing novel I have ever read:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/t...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/t...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Our first Recovered Book from @bhousepress.bsky.social to be mentioned in Kirkus Reviews gets a starred review! Vengeance is Mine by Friedrich Torberg was written in exile in 1943. One of the earliest examples of Holocaust fiction, it's never before been translated.
VENGEANCE IS MINE | Kirkus Reviews
This 1943 novella by the Austrian Jewish writer Torberg—published before the horrors of the Nazi death camps were widely known—describes a brutal showdown between a Jewish prisoner and the German SS officer who calmly tells him he is about to die.
www.kirkusreviews.com
January 20, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Our first Recovered Book from @bhousepress.bsky.social to be mentioned in Kirkus Reviews gets a starred review! Vengeance is Mine by Friedrich Torberg was written in exile in 1943. One of the earliest examples of Holocaust fiction, it's never before been translated.
Starting Diana Athill's INSTEAD OF A LETTER today for #NYRBWomen26, although mine is a Granta edition.
February 3, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Starting Diana Athill's INSTEAD OF A LETTER today for #NYRBWomen26, although mine is a Granta edition.
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Fun fact about the Icelandic language: According to our grammar rules, Facebook is a "she" and Bluesky is a "he".
February 3, 2026 at 12:15 PM
Fun fact about the Icelandic language: According to our grammar rules, Facebook is a "she" and Bluesky is a "he".
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Some eerie tales from a master of the short story - Bora Chung's The Midnight Timetable (translated by @antonhur.com)
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/t...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/t...
The Midnight Timetable
The Midnight Timetable is the latest collection of short stories / novel from Bora Chung translated by Anton Hur. Connected by a mysterious Institute and a narrator who is employed there, the stori…
1streading.wordpress.com
February 1, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Some eerie tales from a master of the short story - Bora Chung's The Midnight Timetable (translated by @antonhur.com)
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/t...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/t...
Starting this next...
February 1, 2026 at 6:40 PM
Starting this next...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
I was never going to leave behind a book with this dustjacket www.stuckinabook.com/turn-again-h...
Turn Again Home (1951) by Ruby Ferguson
I bought Turn Again Home (1951) by Ruby Ferguson when I was in Inverness a couple of years ago – largely on the strength of having enjoyed Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary about 20 years ago, but…
www.stuckinabook.com
January 31, 2026 at 9:34 AM
I was never going to leave behind a book with this dustjacket www.stuckinabook.com/turn-again-h...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
Two stories intertwine across time in Kirstine Reffstrup's Iron Lung, translated by Hunter Simpson and published by Peirene Press:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/i...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/i...
Iron Lung
Kirstine Reffstrup is a Danish author whose debut novel, I, Unica (about the German artist and writer Unica Zürn), was nominated for number of prizes. Now her 2023 novel, Iron Lung, has been transl…
1streading.wordpress.com
January 29, 2026 at 7:55 PM
Two stories intertwine across time in Kirstine Reffstrup's Iron Lung, translated by Hunter Simpson and published by Peirene Press:
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/i...
1streading.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/i...
Reposted by Radz Pandit
It’s live! Presenting the new incarnation of my site, #ReadingVenice. Like it says on the tin, it’s about #Venice and its #books, from classics by Henry James to stories by Daphne du Maurier & the latest non-fiction
www.readingvenice.com
www.readingvenice.com
January 28, 2026 at 4:35 PM
It’s live! Presenting the new incarnation of my site, #ReadingVenice. Like it says on the tin, it’s about #Venice and its #books, from classics by Henry James to stories by Daphne du Maurier & the latest non-fiction
www.readingvenice.com
www.readingvenice.com
Reposted by Radz Pandit
I've adored all Elizabeth Taylor novels I've read so far, but she's such a superb short story writer too. My thoughts on her collection, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
January 28, 2026 at 9:38 AM
I've adored all Elizabeth Taylor novels I've read so far, but she's such a superb short story writer too. My thoughts on her collection, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
I've adored all Elizabeth Taylor novels I've read so far, but she's such a superb short story writer too. My thoughts on her collection, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
January 28, 2026 at 9:38 AM
I've adored all Elizabeth Taylor novels I've read so far, but she's such a superb short story writer too. My thoughts on her collection, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
“I can’t understand it even now,” I said at last. “How can an independent man give himself to such an idea, delivering himself up lock, stock and barrel to another man, however wise?”
January 28, 2026 at 6:15 AM
“I can’t understand it even now,” I said at last. “How can an independent man give himself to such an idea, delivering himself up lock, stock and barrel to another man, however wise?”
Reposted by Radz Pandit
New on my blog, I've written about Elizabeth Taylor's sharply observed, exquisite collection of stories, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
A Dedicated Man – Elizabeth Taylor
A Dedicated Man is a wonderful collection of stories that showcase Elizabeth Taylor's characteristic flair for keen insights into human nature rendered in gorgeous, nuanced prose.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
January 27, 2026 at 8:28 PM
New on my blog, I've written about Elizabeth Taylor's sharply observed, exquisite collection of stories, A DEDICATED MAN.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/a...