The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay

June 10, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. Peirene Press, 2017. Originally published 2013. 160 pgs. Purchased. Twin brothers, Ahmed and Aziz, live near an orange grove established by their grandfather. The orange grove provides Ahmed and Aziz with a shaded, safe place to play-act, as young children are ought to do. When a bomb falls on the grandparents’ house, the people living on the other side of the mountain – people that Ahmed and Aziz have been […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Fiction, French, Middle East, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Larry Tremblay

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

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke

May 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch. Peirene Press, 2013. Originally published 1990. 112 pgs. Library copy. At the start of Vanderbeke’s novella, a mother and her two teenage children sit down to enjoy a feast of mussels, a meal laboriously prepared for the husband who loves mussels and is expected to shortly arrive home with news of a promotion. The scene is set to be one of domestic tranquility, of the home that every German […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Europe, Fiction, German, Germany, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Birgit Vanderbeke

Shadows on the Tundra by Dalia Grinkevičiūtė

April 15, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas. Peirene Press, 2018. Originally published 1997. 192 pgs. Purchased. In 1991, a jar filled with scraps of paper was discovered buried in Kaunas, the former capital of Lithuania. The papers document nearly three years in Dalia Grinkevičiūtė after she deported to a Soviet gulag in Siberia in 1941 at the age of fourteen with her mother and older brother. Grinkevičiūtė had buried the papers in 1950, fearing they would be […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Genocide, Indigenious Peoples, Nonfiction, Peirene Press, Russia, Translated • Tags: Dalia Grinkevičiūtė

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

March 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Translated from the German. Read by Frederick Davidson. Blackstone Audio, 2009. Originally published 1812. 10 hours, 18 minutes. Library copy. Wyss’ novel follows a Swiss family figuring out how to survive on an uninhabited island after a violent storm wrecks their ship among the rocky outcropping of an uninhabited island. The rest of the crew headed to Port Jackson, Australia via the East Indies abandoned the family, taking all the lifeboats but leaving the livestock and provisions […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, German, Juvenile, Oceania, Translated • Tags: Johann David Wyss

Children of The Cave by Virve Sammalkorpi

March 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah. Peirene Press, 2019. Originally published 2016. 176 pgs. Purchased. In 1819, Iax Agolasky travels to northwest Russia as the research assistant to a well-known French anthropologist and explorer named Jean Moltique. The goal of Moltique’s exhibition is to locate lost or ancient tribes in the region, and their search leads them to a cave in the Russian wilderness where a small group of children live. Moltique believes […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Finnish, Peirene Press, Russia, Translated • Tags: Virve Sammalkorpi

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

The Shadow Killer by Arnaldur Indriðason

March 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. Minotaur Books, 2018. Originally published 2016. 304 pgs. Library copy.  Amid the American and British occupation of Iceland in 1941, a man is founded murdered in a small apartment in Reykjavík – a swastika drawn across the victim’s forehead with his own blood. When the murder weapon is determined to an American-issued service pistol, a Canadian-Icelandic military officer by the name of Thorson is loaned out to the Icelandic […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Iceland, Icelandic, Translated • Tags: Arnaldur Indriðason

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part Two)

March 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. This post includes my thoughts on Part Four through the Epilogue of Dostoyevsky’s most famous work. For my thoughts on Parts One through Three, please see this post. As the end of Part Three, the main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov had awoken to find an unknown yet aristocratically dressed man standing over […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

February 22, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the Hebrew. Harper, 2015. Originally published 2011. 541 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “A Brief History of Humankind”, Harari’s book covers three “revolutions” that shaped the course of history – the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution – before delving into a lesson in how culture binds the world together and a short speculation about the future. Beginning about 70,0000 years, the Cognitive Revolution led to the evolution of Neanderthals and other […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Chunkster, Economics, Europe, Hebrew, Indigenious Peoples, Middle East, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, South America, Translated, United States • Tags: Yuval Noah Harari

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Part One)

February 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Recorded Books, 2000. Originally published 1866. 25 hours, 1 minute. Library copy. Arguably Dostoyevsky’s most famous work, Crime and Punishment is divided into six parts plus epilogue. Given the novel’s length and (assumed) difficulty in reading, my book club decided to split the book at the halfway mark and discuss it at two meetings. Our February meetup covered Part One to Three, which […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Russia, Russian, Translated • Tags: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Guidall

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

January 15, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Hebrew. Harper, 2017. Originally published 2015. 450 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “A Brief History of Tomorrow”, Harari’s book draws on his knowledge as a historian, explaining how homo sapiens have come to dominate the world — physically and philosophically. In the physical realm, for example, homo sapiens have domesticated animals for consumption. Philosophically, such actions are justified through claims that God granted them dominion over animals or that animals are unable to construct meaning to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Chunkster, Hebrew, Technology, Translated • Tags: Yuval Noah Harari