During my (admittedly rather fragmentary) visits to Romania the golden helmet of Coțofeneşti was the single most mesmerising thing I ever saw, a whole world contained in one object. Difficult to overstate its civilizational importance

Don't think I 've ever experienced a Croatian election in which so few friends bothered to vote and even avoided talking about.

Was thinking of going out to vote simply to enjoy the juvenile pleasure of invalidating my ballot by drawing rude pictures, but even that seems like a depressingly pointless waste of effort

2/2. Often unfairly des cribed as a generational novel because the protagonist is in her 20s, it actually has universal things to say about lust, love and the way we come to terms with our obsessions. With action shifting from Prague to Spain it's also a very European tale of movement and searching.

Well that's one way of reversing the tendency towards low turn-outs

Remilitarization of the Panamaland. Get away with that and the world's his oyster

Yup. Silver Bone came out in 2024, a sequel called The Stolen Heart is, as far as I know, due in 2025.

Few translators better placed than @bdralyuk.bsky.social to draw out the wit and poetry embedded in Kurkov's deceptively straight-to-the-point storytelling style

Translated by Angela Rodel, publ. by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social

I know you can't live on empathy and positive vibes but am sending some just in case

I grew up on the other side of the Chevin... different world really

I read it in 2.5 days flat, which tells its own story. Have wanted to buy & read it since it first came out, sorry it took me so long. (I grew up just outside Leeds btw, and thought I knew the city until I read Ghost Signs...)

Thanks, best wishes & hope your week improves!

I don't think there's an obvious entry point (they're all good in different ways) - but historical novels Paradise (1994) followed by After Lives (2020) is one way to go: the second seems like an indirect sequel to the first

It's also an outstanding work of travel literature, a contemporary odyssey through city and suburbs that's full of love for place & people as well as outrage at the poverty and dereliction lurking behind a facade of normality. Makes other books of travel and place look frivolous in comparison.