Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi

May 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Tin House Books, 2012. Originally published 2001. 110 pgs. Library copy. Rather than recap the book for myself, I’d like to copy the summary provided by the publisher as I think it best incapsulates the haunting tone of this novella: “A single mother takes her two sons on a trip to the seaside. They stay in a hotel, drink hot chocolate, and go to the funfair. She wants to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Véronique Olmi

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

May 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 2008. Originally published 1949. 232 pgs. Purchased. In 1940, as the Nazis were marching onto to Paris, an English solider named Hilary Wainwright was forced to abandon his wife and newborn son. His wife, Lisa, was too ill from childbirth for a hasty evacuation back to England; his son, John, seemingly better off in the care of his mother and her friends than a single father. In 1942, the British War Office notified Hilary of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Adoption, Europe, Fiction, France, Persephone Books • Tags: Marghanita Laski

Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin

March 13, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Turkish by John W. Baker. AmazonCrossing, 2013. Originally published 2002. 395 pgs. Free download. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, Selva married Rafael Alfandari, a Jewish man whose family settled in Turkey after being expelled from Spain in 1492. Neither the Alfandari family nor Selva’s parents, Fazil Resat Paşa and Leman Hanim, support the marriage and, after being cutoff, Selva and Rafael flee to Paris in the hopes of finding a […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, Genocide, Holocaust, Middle East, ReadDiverse, Translated, Turkish • Tags: Ayşe Kulin

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

December 20, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Lorelei King. Random House Audio, 2014. 14 hours, 48 minutes. Library copy.  I purchased a printed copy of Smiley’s novel a little over two years ago, which is why I included the novel on my to-read list for 20 Books of Summer earlier this year. But the tiny print bothered my eyes, and I put the book aside until I could source one with larger print. I never did find an edition with larger print, […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Europe, Fiction, France, North America, United States • Tags: Jane Smiley, Lorelei King

I Was Told to Come Alone by Souad Mekhennet

October 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Henry Holt and Co, 2017. 368 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad”, Mekhennet’s memoir begins with a recounting of her childhood in Morocco. Born in Germany, Mekhennet was sent to live with her grandmother in Morocco while her mother and father worked as a cook and cleaner, respectively, in Germany. Her exposure to the language and to her family’s history as Muslims in North Africa may have set her apart from […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Africa, Book Club, Europe, France, Germany, Middle East, Nonfiction, ReadDiverse, Religion • Tags: Souad Mekhennet

Breach by Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes

June 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – print. Peirene Press, 2016. 160 pgs. Purchased. The English Channel may separate the two countries, but the city of Calais has become a border town between France and Great Britain. Migrants and refugees hoping to settle in Britain have flocked to the French side of the Chunnel, building a community known as “The Jungle”. The eight short stories included in this collection by Popoola and Holmes are largely set in “The Jungle” and feature the voices of refugees […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Europe, Fiction, France, Peirene Press, Short Stories, United Kingdom • Tags: Annie Holmes, Olumide Popoola

Climate Changed by Philippe Squarzoni

March 18, 2016 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French. Harry N. Abrams, 2014. 467 pgs. Library copy. When it comes to comics and graphic novels, I tend to be drawn to those on the nonfiction shelf. I find the format tends to make darker or complex topics more accessible and personalized than a long nonfiction tome. So I was intrigued by Squarzoni’s comic, which is subtitled “a personal journey through the science”, when I was browsing the library’s comics section. This book grew […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Chunkster, Comics, Europe, France, French, Nonfiction, Translated

Paris Red by Maureen Gibbons

April 27, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. W. W. Norton, 2015. 288 pgs. Review copy courtesy of the publisher. As she stands in front of a shop working on her sketch and wearing her green “whore” boots, seventeen-year-old Victorine Meurent meets a mysterious man who helps her understand how to properly add shadows and, therefore, dimensions to her drawings. The young woman lives and works in the poorer left bank of Paris in 1862, and experience has made her slightly leery of the older […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Art, Europe, Fiction, France • Tags: Maureen Gibbons

Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano

April 8, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti. Yale University Press, 2014. 213 pgs. Library copy. Like many who read solely in English, the announcement that Modiano won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature left me a bit confounded. I have never heard of the author and never, to my recollection, seen a review for his work on one of the many book blogs I religiously read. Journalists and bloggers alike blamed the lack of awareness for his […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Genocide, Holocaust, Nobel Prize, Short Stories, Translated • Tags: Patrick Modiano

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter

November 26, 2014 by Christina

Nonfiction — audiobook. Read by Jeremy Davidson. Macmillan Audio, 2009. 14 hours, 19 minutes. Library copy. Subtitled “Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History”, this book traces the effectors of five so-called Monuments Men and one women between D-Day (June 6, 1944) and Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) on May 8, 1945. One of the little known programs of the Nazi regime was to steal, plunder, and amass the great works of art across Europe […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Art, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, France, Germany, Nonfiction, Poland • Tags: Bret Witter, Jeremy Davidson, Robert M. Edsel

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

November 22, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Persephone Books, 2008. Originally published 1953. 413 pgs. Library copy. Whipple’s novel follows an English family as they grapple with the impact a young, French woman has on their lives. Avery owns his own publishing house in London but lives outside the city with his wife, Ellen, near the home of his demanding mother, known only as Mrs. North or Madame. Their daughter, Anne, attends a boarding school away from her family and her beloved horse, Roma, […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Classics, Europe, Fiction, France, Persephone Books, United Kingdom • Tags: Dorothy Whipple

Anne Frank and Me by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld

October 30, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Puffin, 2001. 291 pgs. Purchased. The “me” in the title is American teenager Nicole Burns, who blogs about her frustrations with school, her inability to measure up to the ideal body or as the ideal student and daughter that her sister Elizabeth (known as Little Bit or LB on the blog) seems to be, and her infatuation with her classmate Jack (known as J on the blog) under the penname “Girl X”. “Frightening Thought du Jour: We […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, Genocide, Holocaust, Juvenile • Tags: Cherie Bennett, Jeff Gottesfeld