Simone
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frauchen.bsky.social
Simone
@frauchen.bsky.social
760 followers 740 following 97 posts
🇨🇦 (🇩🇪🇺🇦) She/her; decidedly liberal and socialist. I work in an independent bookshop, so I like offering up reading suggestions based on books I’ve enjoyed.
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Tokyo Express is a 1958 Japanese noir novel recently reissued by Random House. What could have been a dry logic puzzle of train schedules & maps of Japan is enlivened by lively, dogged detectives, imperfect but determined to follow their instincts & uncover the truth. A slim-but-satisfying read.⚡️📚💙
A photograph of the North American paperback of Siecho Matsumoto’s newly reissued 1958 novel Tokyo Express. The noir novel is translated by Jesse Kirkwood and introduced by Amor Towles. The cover illustration features large blocks of colour; the train is purple, and it barrels through a minimalist landscape of green and black, against a red backdrop that suggests the rising sun of the Japanese flag.
November 21, 2025 at 2:08 PM
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Hu Anyan offers in his memoir an interesting glimpse into the Chinese gig economy. Through all the often mindless, physically demanding work, the occasional humiliation, & some tasks he simply doesn’t like or for which he isn’t well-suited, he maintains his sense of humour & dignity.💡📚💙
A photograph of the cover of the North American hardcover edition of Hu Anyan’s memoir I Deliver Parcels in Beijing. Translated by Jack Hargreaves.
November 20, 2025 at 2:01 PM
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A dystopian novel about a not-all-that-distant future in which AI is very definitely running the show & resistance is, if not futile, extremely difficult (but not dead yet!); Nayler has, in a surprisingly short novel, created a bewildering world of paranoia, confusion, despair, defiance, & hope.🪐📚💙
A photograph of the North American hardcover edition of Ray Nayler’s dystopian futuristic novel Where the Axe is Buried. The illustration on the cover is coloured in tones of orange and purple, and features kind of a domed city hovering above what turns out to be taiga wilderness. Many things about the dystopia in which the characters find themselves living feels decidedly Russian (Baba Yaga is even invoked a few times, in a good way).
November 15, 2025 at 5:57 PM
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I missed subway stops at least 5 times reading this novel. Set in the nascent 19th century medical community in Edinburgh, the mystery involves young, vulnerably-employed women who are being horribly poisoned. A gripping if occasionally gruesome tale with a very satisfying conclusion.⚡️📚💙⏳📚
A photograph of the North American paperback edition of The Way of All Flesh, the first in a series of historical medical mystery novels written by Marisa Haetzman and her husband Christopher Brookmyre (if you haven’t already done so, do yourself a favour and read Brookmyre’s One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, which had me ugly-crying with laughter on a train to Ottawa some years ago).
November 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
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What I loved about this memoir/worldwide cemetery tour by Argentinian horror author Enriquez was her compassionate, unapologetic self-awareness; sense of humour; thoughtful storytelling; & her way of beautifully integrating the personal & the universal. 💡📚💙
A photograph of the North American hardcover edition of Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez’s new memoir/travelogue Somebody is Walking on Your Grave. The cover is a striking lime green colour, with the title and author’s name in hot pink all-caps and an illustration of a blue and pink angel draping herself over a gravestone. It’s a lively tour of remarkable cemeteries and the curiosities (corpses and monuments alike) within them. Beautifully translated by Megan McDowell.
November 9, 2025 at 3:16 PM
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Die Apothekerin is a darkly funny novel unreliably narrated by a pharmacist who has terrible luck with (& taste in) men. Since the tragic death of a schoolmate when she was a young girl, she also encounters a startling number of deaths & near-deaths, some accidental, some on purpose. 🇩🇪📚💙
A photograph of Ingrid Noll‘s novel Die Apothekerin, featuring a painted portrait of a woman with a scarf around her head, and the look of a guilty conscience on her face.
October 30, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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Simon Mason‘s most recent (compulsively readable) DI Ryan Wilkins mystery novel, A Voice in the Night, is very satisfying on a bunch of levels: lots of unexpected twists, social commentary, humour, touching parenting moments, exposed hypocrisies. ⚡️📚💙
A photograph of the British paperback edition of Simon Mason‘s latest DI Ryan Wilkins mystery novel A Voice in the Night.
October 21, 2025 at 11:25 AM
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🇨🇦 Thammavongsa’s first novel describes a day in the life of Ning, the owner of a nail salon in a city that might be Toronto. Ning’s interior monologues & the differences between what she says to her workers, clients, & herself reveal profound tensions between classes, races, sexes, & friends. 🖋️📚💙
A photograph of the cover of the Canadian hardcover edition of Souvankham Thammavongsa’s first novel Pick a Colour. It’s a small book; the cover is white with a confetti-like sprinkling of brightly-coloured fingernails. Thammavongsa packs a lot into her seemingly slim novel, which is both funny, touching, and heartbreaking. And yes, my nails are a mess: I shudder to think what Ning would make of my life and psyche just by looking at them.
October 19, 2025 at 1:40 PM
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This sprawling French novel about a 20th century Italian sculptor & his muse examines the rise & fall of Fascism in Italy, the lives of Italian women, the profundity of friendship & family loyalty, & the many facets of love & faith. A mystery at the heart of the novel propels the plot forward. 🖋️📚💙
A photograph of the British edition of the English translation of French author Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s Prix-Goncourt-winning novel Watching Over Her (Vieller Sur Elle). The cover illustration depicts a house and some trees in rolling hills, all done in reds and yellows and reminiscent, somehow, of Tuscan landscapes. The plot moves between Pietra d’Alba, Florence, and Rome, and concerns the lives of a gifted sculptor (Mimo) and his muse (Viola) and the fate of a mysterious pieta hidden deep within a church vault.
October 17, 2025 at 11:27 PM
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Two utopian (solarpunk? hopepunk?) novellas by Becky Chambers in one. A lovely break from the horrors of the news cycle, & a story that raises questions about what societies value & why. Also offers up a bit of hope for surviving this apocalypse & the greed that is devouring our planet.🪐📚💙
A photograph of the cover of the North American paperback edition of Becky Chambers’ novellas A Psalm For the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy published together here as Monk and Robot. They work perfectly well together as one novel: a light, friendly, philosophical story of self-discovery in a post-apocalyptic utopia.
October 12, 2025 at 11:53 AM
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🇨🇦 BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet’s new book is a people’s history of Afghanistan (from 1969 to the present) from the perspective of the employees of one of the most storied hotels in Kabul. Informative, compelling, & compassionate, Doucet gives Afghanis a platform to tell their own story. 💡📚💙
A photograph of the cover of the British hardcover edition of Lyse Doucet’s new book about the recent (since the 60s) history of Afghanistan. She records in this book significant, often touching personal stories of ordinary people, men and women of Kabul, who work at the Inter-Continental Hotel, some since its opening in 1969. Their stories are told with compassion, humour, and respect, with a focus on major events in Afghan history as they affected the people living their lives through, sometimes in spite of, them; stories of everyday courage and joy (and heart-wrenching tragedy) abound. There are life lessons here that we in the West can learn from as major historical events start to affect our own lives. Coming to independent bookshops in North America on November 4th.
October 9, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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For Broadchurch enthusiasts, Chibnall’s Death at the White Hart is a nice, creepy little murder mystery set in a small English village with a satisfying sprinkling of spooky folkloric horror.⚡️📚💙
A photograph of the British paperback edition of Chris Chibnall’s debut mystery novel, Death at the White Hart. The cover is a lovely photograph of a gloomy dark blue sky over the charming roofs of an old English village; one of the houses has on its side a hanging pub sign featuring a deer with big antlers. Having watched and adored Broadchurch, I couldn’t help but read the whole character of the lead detective, DS Nicola Bridge in Olivia Coleman’s voice (as I imagine it to be, I’m no clairvoyant). Which was great good fun, I love her.
October 5, 2025 at 12:07 PM
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On sale in Canada today! And the Thursday Murder Club is as devilishly delightful as ever. ⚡️📚💙
A photograph of the Canadian hardcover edition of Richard Osman’s fifth Thursday Murder Club novel, The Impossible Fortune. It is surrounded by other books on the sales table at the bookshop in which I work; sales are brisk.
October 1, 2025 at 3:33 AM
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An extraordinary memoir: via a touching & profound tribute to his parents, Flanagan muses on the radical importance of fiction, the interconnectedness of everything, how cruelty visited upon others is cruelty visited upon us all, & the miracle of life that we only understand when life ebbs away.💡📚💙
A photograph of the North American hardcover edition of Richard Flanagan’s memoir, Question 7. It’s kind of a bland design, echoing war-time file folders, maybe, reminiscent of nuclear-age fonts (I’m no font expert), belying the literary pyrotechnics within. In considering life and the interconnectedness of existence on our planet, he muses on: HG Wells and Rebecca West; the creation of the atom bomb; his father’s POW time as a slave labourer in a Japanese mine; the life and work of Leo Szilard; Kurt Vonnegut; his mother’s heroic efforts to make a home for their family in Tasmania; Chekov; the horrifying genocide of indigenous Tasmanians; the degradation of ecosystems via colonialism; his own near-death experience; forgiveness; the destruction of Hiroshima and the American unleashing of atomic warfare … I’m sure I’ve left something out. In thrilling prose, Flanagan ties it all together, answering Chekov’s Question 7, asking more questions of his own. Highly recommended.
September 28, 2025 at 12:19 PM
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More than a journey around Britain & Ireland via archaeological sites, Peter Ross’ captivating new book gathers stories about the people (past & present) who keep those sites & their history alive. He gives us a vital sense of the ancients that can serve as examples, guides, & cautionary tales.💡📚💙
A photograph of the British hardcover edition of Peter Ross’s thoroughly enjoyable new book Upon a White Horse: Journeys in Ancient Britain and Ireland. The artwork on the cover is beautiful: an illustration of rolling green fields, the Sycamore Gap tree (RIP), the Uffington white horse, and the Cerne Abbas giant visible in the distance, standing stones and the Sutton Hoo mask in the foreground. The chapters are divided into archaeological wonders: shrines, rings, henges, graves, walls, all told with Ross’ unflagging enthusiasm and flair, and his respect and admiration for the people who keep the sites and the history (often also the mystery) alive. His work is fast becoming my go-to for solace and sanity as the news cycles circle the drain.
September 24, 2025 at 12:29 PM
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Following one wolf on his remarkable journey across Europe, Weymouth gives us an engrossing look at the biology, history, & lore of the wolf in Europe, but also a thoughtful & balanced examination of fear, prejudice, migration, & the broad, life-altering consequences of climate change.💡📚💙
A photograph of the hardcover North American edition of British author Adam Weymouth’s book Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness. His main focus is on Slovc, a wolf whose migration a decade earlier he follows on foot, over mountains and valleys from Ljubljana, Slovenia all the way to Verona, Italy. Weymouth’s own journey is beautifully described, as are his experiences meeting people along the way: conservationists, farmers, herders, and outdoor enthusiasts who all have an opinion about wolves, and a stake in their existence. He is compassionate and fair in considering the fear, awe, and loathing generated by wolves and their stunningly successful, if continually endangered, reemergence throughout Europe.
September 15, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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Li’s deeply profound, courageous book is a meditation on living through incomprehensible loss. Dedicated to her late son James, her book examines the fact of his suicide, & that of his brother 6 years earlier, from a place of radical acceptance. Life, impossibly & incontrovertibly, carries on.💡📚💙
A photograph of the North American hardcover edition of Yiyun Li‘s new book Things in Nature Merely Grow. It is a small, slim, moss green book, and it stands on a white windowsill next to a beige and ivory coloured curtain. In its wisdom and dispassionate examination of living through devastating loss, Li gives us a startlingly profound understanding of what it means to live with radical acceptance; what it means to live in and from an abyss; and how, like flowers, trees, animals, and insects, a person can lose everything yet still carry on with life and find meaning there. I will be rereading this one many, many times.
September 10, 2025 at 8:48 PM
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British archaeologist Leary takes the reader on a personal & professional journey through the ancient movement of people. It sometimes seems that travel, immigration, mass refugee migration are modern issues, but Leary shows these are part of the human story, right from our very beginnings. 💡📚💙
A photograph of the hardcover edition of Jim Leary‘s charming, interesting, and accessible nonfiction book about the archaeology of movement. The cover is white and features purple silhouette illustrations of people and animals taking part in various modes of travel at various times in ancient history. The title, Footmarks, is in a red serif font, with the author‘s name above it in blue. It‘s a lovely cover, and echoes the beautiful lino-cut illustrations decorating each chapter page of the book.
September 7, 2025 at 2:40 PM
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In Proto, science journalist Spinney makes the very complicated study of the origins of languages comprehensible for the rest of us. It helps that she focuses on one language group (Proto-Indo-European) & explains the huge leaps forward in understanding provided by DNA & computer technologies. 💡📚💙
A photograph of the North American hardcover edition of Laura’s Spinney’s fascinating book about the origins of numerous Indo-European languages. Major factors in the spread of language are migration and interactions between populations who meet and get along, or don’t. The multi-disciplinary study of language shows that, from our very beginnings, humans have been on the move because of climate change, curiosity, over-population, the search for a better life, the escape from a bad life. It’s not just a study of language, but also a study of humanity.
September 2, 2025 at 1:11 PM
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I like to think I know from healthy eating; OTOH, it never hurts to check in now & then. Hill’s reportage on processed food didn’t at first teach me anything new (see Michael Pollan), but the chapters on menopause & cosmetic chemicals were highly enlightening & helpful. 💡📚💙
This is a bad photograph of the British hardcover edition of Milli Hill’s new book about the crap in processed food and cosmetics. The light is a bit too yellow so the lovely teal colour of the cover doesn’t pop. Anyway, it was very much worth reading, particularly to understand just how many toxic chemicals surround us and are now contained within us and the food we eat, and how these chemicals effect our physical and mental health. It’s also great to read a book about nutrition that focuses on women, because many of our natural hormonal processes are negatively effected by all these chemicals; it gives me hope to know that women’s health is finally being given some (but still not enough!) attention.
August 29, 2025 at 1:37 PM
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Poetic, unflinching, & occasionally hilarious, Blackfeet author James Welche’s 1974 novel follows the life of a young indigenous man struggling to find his way through the ruins of a family and a disappeared culture. Devastating, but hope (& life) abides. 🖋️📚💙
A photograph of the 2021 Penguin Classics paperback edition of James Welch’s 1974 novel, Winter in the Blood, with a foreword by Joy Harjo and an introduction by Louise Erdrich. The cover features the usual thick black Penguin Classics border along the bottom. The artwork above it is stark white, with an ice-blue square in the middle, in which is a darker blue double silhouette of … I think? … an animal’s snout. Or maybe a land mass of some sort. It’s not clear, and considering some of the more hallucinogenic moments in the novel, maybe that’s the point.
August 20, 2025 at 9:49 PM
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Menger-Anderson‘s debut historical sci-fi novel is an approachable, interesting mix of complex math, the lure & horror of authoritarianism, Wikipedia, time travel, the erasure of women from history & science, neuro-diversity, & the struggle for the basic human right to love who you love. ⚡️📚💙
A photo of the hardcover exition of Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s debut novel The Expert of Subtle Revisions. The top half of the cover is designed to mimic a Wikipedia entry and the bottom half is a detail from an Egon Schiele painting of a woman in green with her head on her black-stockinged knee. It looks as though she is peering out from under the Wikipedia entry. The novel is set in early 21st century California and early 20th century Vienna.
August 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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A brilliant, beautiful dystopian novel, first published in 1963, The Wall manages to conjure in the reader joy, fury, hope, despair, awe, & horror, all at the same time. While quietly profound & thought-provoking, the story is riveting -- definitely destined to be one of my all-time favourites. 🖋️📚💙
A photograph of the 2022 New Directions paperback edition of Marlen Haushofer’s novel The Wall, splayed open on my lap. The cover features a painting of a black & white cow standing on a patch of grass against a sky blue background. The cow’s head is silhouetted on a panel of white; the silhouette contains part of a landscape painting … it’s hard to describe. The story centres on a woman who finds herself forced to survive entirely on her own with a dog, a cow, and a cat on a mountainside in Austria. The novel is surprising, glorious, gorgeous; I’ll be thinking about it for days and days.
August 17, 2025 at 1:28 AM
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In Patagonia was a travel book like no other at the time it was published in 1977. A large part of it centres around the fates of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, & the rest is devoted to the (possibly fictional) adventures & enthusiasms of Chatwin, with some history & palaeontology thrown in. 📚💙
A photograph of the 2019 Vintage Classics paperback edition of Bruce Chatwin’s first travel book, In Patagonia, first published in 1977. This cover features a map of the area through which Chatwin travelled, with some cities and events highlighted in red. The book sits on a plastic turquoise table. I put off reading the thing for years, but decided it was finally time, after Philippe Sands mentioned it in his latest book. It wasn’t what I expected, really: I think I learned more about Chatwin than about Patagonia. A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the Worlds Smartest Birds of Prey by Johnathan Meiburg was a far more interesting book, and in addition to explaining what caracaras are, really brought the Falklands to life.
August 14, 2025 at 2:44 AM
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3rd in a sort of human rights law trilogy by barrister Sands, this is a fascinating, occasionally thrilling, often unbelievably frustrating account of the attempt to seek justice through extradition (& other means) for crimes against humanity committed by Pinochet & Nazi Walther Rauff in Chile.💡📚💙
A photograph of the British hardcover edition of Philippe Sands’ newest book 38 Londres Street. The cover features a colour photo of Pinochet, decked out in all his ridiculous gilded buttons and braid.
August 7, 2025 at 12:21 PM