Book Review: Berlin by Bea Setton

 

´Berlin is an easy place to start anew, as everyone seems to have just arrived´.

As the weather was generous with us, Berliners, in the last days, I took a stroll today, all on my own, through the famous Kreuzberg. The people are hanging out alone or in couples, eating outdoors or walking their dogs, conversing in English loud and funnily. The bikes are moving fast, long lines of families on two rows, requesting their slice of the road. This is a part of Berlin, the one you can see all round the day, no matter what time or day of the week. And when the day is over, this Berlin relocates to the underground, dancing as it is no tomorrow until the break of the dawn.

I had the taste of this Berlin too, at least for a short while or once in a while. I may nostalgically think about those times. But this Berlin is so unauthentic as an ad for beauty surgery. It lures you, it may promise you a life as extraordinary as a mushroom-induced dream. 

That´s the promise Daphne the main character of Berlin by Bea Setton, a British-French young girl, with a side for lying about herself and almost everything, dreamed about as she arrived to Berlin. She wanted to learn German, eventually do some graduate studies, enjoy life. Her parents secured her a monthly payment for her basic needs. She is free as a bird and ready to have some fun. But things are getting on the wrong side of fun: there is an ex she met - actually she was aware he is here therefore her choice of an escape; she got a stalker; made few friends but will lose all of them soon; is running as crazy around the Hasenheidepark; ´someone´ threw a stone into her rented apartment no. 1, then to the rented apartment no.2. Until the end of the story, she is becoming more and more psychotic and ends up leaving Berlin with her things in a blue IKEA bag.

I have no idea why I insisted to finish this book. There is no actual story, unless this unfolding psychosis, and some well-placed hints about what is supposed to happen. The only part which is really intelligent is the classification of people one may find on dating sites, but such articles one can easily find at the ´Dating´ section of any respectable glossy magazine.

Shortly, Berlin by Bea Setton is a psychotic projection of a Berlin that haunts the dreams of Western people whose life is in a point of no return. Unless you got completely on the wrong side and you take your IKEA bag on your shoulder embarking on the first cheap flight back home.

Rating: 2 stars

Book Review: This House of Clay and Water by Faiqa Mansab

 

Twitter is for me one of the main source of bookish inspiration. My bank account my suffer, but at least my spirit has an enormous resource to use every time when in need. I forgot how many times in my life books offered me support and help, and faithful company, besides opening my mind to different worlds that - at least for now - cannot experience directly.

One of those recommendations come a couple of months ago, via the very talented Awais Khan: This House of Clay and Water by fellow Pakistani author Faiqa Mansab. 

The action of the novel is based in Lahore and follows the intertwined destinies of several women. Nadia and Sasha are by far the most proeminent characters, but the other female participants into the story are equally important in creating a women-lead narrative. They are assigned different background and personalities, from the love of Regency novels to middle class background, to their preference for physical love and naive trust in men. Thus, they are not only diverse but also take the shape of real-life humans driven by desires and selfishness. They are not good only because they are women, but are shaped by the men´s world they are living in. But are those weak and inconsequential men really worth destroying their lives and souls for?

But the women in This House of Clay and Water do not have too much time for taking the right decisions and answering philosophical questions - although they may ask the questions as such...They need to save themselves and cruel horrendous decisions, like Razia´s sexual use of Zoya is a horrible example in this respect. 

The most interesting and tragical character though is the hijra Bhanggi, a storyteller in the vein of the old traditional stories, a mirror of the double-faced characters and bigot society. 

Both the stories and characters featured in the story do not give place to black andwhite verdicts. As humans are in real life, there is a lot of space for discussion, nuances and kindness, tolerance and understanding. For the curious reader, it reveals the world of Lahore and of the women of Pakistan in general, in a fine and elaborated literary wrapping.

It can only leave the reader feeling grateful for being shared such a story and unique women experiences. I am even happier to have discovered just another talented writer for Pakistan and I can only wait to discover more writings by Faiqa Mansab.

Rating: 5 stars

Rachel´s Random Resources: Lilac Skies by Shivani Bansal

Witnessing the last breaths of the British rule in Nairobi, Meena is trying to find herself and get her life back. Married as a young girl to Amar, a man she never had time to know, she is left alone, and all she has are her memories from the life spent in India with her family and friends. What one can do in such a case? Return back home? Focusing more on her current life and husband? Fighting for a life worth her dreams?

Lilas Skies by Shivani Bansal is a story of a woman´s strength to fight for herself against all odds. In order to be strong one doesn´t need to fly on roofs and share the wealth of the rich to the poor. Sometimes, making a choice to live or leave is the ultimate strength. 

Meena is by far my favorite character in this book and I was definitely in love with her resilience and courage. The historical background for the story is definitely unique and the ambiance - both at the society and nature-related level - is very realistic. The relationships between characters are emotionally defined with strong bonds. I equally loved the writing, empathic while precise, tailored to the various characters and their emotional context(s).

Lilac Skies makes one think a lot about how to define and re-define home, what does it mean to be a home and how one can build a home beyond borders and societies. Especially in our fluid times it helps a lot to fuel the discussion. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Raising Raffi. A Book About Fatherhood by Keith Gessen

"To write about parenting when you are a father is like writing about literature when you can hardly read".

While there is a constantly updated list of both fiction and nonfiction books exploring motherhood, there is hardly anything said about its masculine equivalent, fatherhood. Somehow, I´ve reached the same conclusion with the author of Raising Raffi, Keith Gessen. In fact, I don´t believe too much in parenting books; it makes you feel you are living the dream when in reality most of the time you hardly know how you are any more. Of course children are beautiful and adorable and a gift, but being a human also means being physically and mentally limited. Sometimes, it is too much to deal with, from sleepless nights to hour-long tantrums (my favorites, always).

As his son was born, Gessen and his wife, writer and journalist Emily Gould, started the re-adjustement process the parents are forced to go on for the next 18 years. Gessen, ´out of desperation´ decided to write A Book about Fatherhood (For People Who Would Never Read Such a Book). 

The book is structured in several essays, written with humour and self-irony, with some good documentation sources. It can be read as a memoir, or series of installments on topics around fatherhood. It is mostly an exercise in getting used with the slight and dramatic alterations of the relationship with almost everything, from money to sleep or reading materials for children - I am delighted to discover that Daniil Kharms wrote poems for children, but disappointed in me that it took me so long to found it out.

Gessen is a minutious observers of people and environments, the situations are described and explained in details worth of a journalistic investigation. But at the end of each essay, nothing is left unexplained. It is an enriching reading experience, either you are interested in parenthood/fatherhood or not.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: Dschinns by Fatma Aydemir

Dschinns by journalist and writer Fatma Aydemir was for me one of the most expected books to read this year. Although my literary interests are unlimited, I am always interested in getting to know the literature of the place I am living, as a reflection of the ongoing changes and mentalities. 

The novel is made of different stories of the members of the same Turkish family. They moved to Germany, in an imaginary Rheinstadt - allusion to the use of Turkish workforce in the once industrial area around the Rhine river - in the 1970s. The story starts at the end of the 1990s, when the patriarch of the family, Hüseyn dies of a heart attack in his apartment in Istanbul, his dream made up with the money he earned in Germany. 

The rest of the story gives voice on different levels to his wife and children, although slightly different in terms of identity. Women are rather playing the role of voiceless participants, similarly to the djins, terms used in the Middle East for ghosts. 

The author manages perfectly to calibrate the story, the personal testimonies with the socio-historical context and the references to the Fremdfeindlichkeit - or simply said, xenophobia. It is admirably played on multiple voices and levels, unique not only for the topic addressed - inter-generational stories of Turkish families in Germany - but also from the point of view of the literary dynamic itself. 

The success of Dschinns is a good news not only for the representatives of the Turkish-German society, rarely represented in literature and arts in general until now, but also for the German society itself. After more than a generation, it finally acknowledges the ´Otherness´ of their own society, other than by dismissing as ´primitive´ everything who does not look like themselves. It is a positive step towards, maybe, a more open society, aware and eventually proud of its diversity.

The novel was on the short list of the Deutsche Buchpreis 2022 and personally I put on my bets on it. I am sure the winner is equally outstanding - and on my TBR as well - but I can only wish that there will be more and more authors like Aydemir on the lists - longs or shorts - of the German literary prizes.

Rating: 5 stars

The Captain and the Glory

 

I will give up some books if not in translation. If the topic in the original language is beyond my intellectual endurance level, a translation can add something interesting from the point of view of the vocabulary. My latest example is the humorous take on Trump´s presidency by Dave Eggers, an authors whose books did not disappointed me until now. 

The Captain and the Glory - translated into German as Der größte Kapitän aller Zeiten by the duo Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann - is an allegorical comedy about a porn-lover capitain with a yellow feather getting in charge of the boat ´Glory´ and leading it successfully to failure. The analogies with the Trump obscenities are on purpose, as the references to his inabilities of all kinds - from leadership to intellectual. It is a grotesque character taking over the story and nobody else can really grow in his shadow. 

Definitely I am not the target of such a book and did not have enough irony to consider Trump as a laughable literary character. Somehow, his very real presence at the White House was surreal enough to let my imagination flee over the mountains of stupidity. 

However, I´ve found the context of the book and the comparisons used are relatively banal and predictable. A dictator comparing himself with a captain and the ship called ´Glory´. It´s like the author just re-assembled fragments of the reality into a literary narrative, without doing too much editing. 

The result in my opinion hardly makes me laugh but also almost bored me to tears. Why you need to write such a book when in fact you can just make a collage of some news reports and add a video of the ´captain´. 

I am not sure if I will give a try any time soon to any other Trump-inspired piece of literature. In any case, The Captain and the Glory is in my books labelled as an unsuccessful try. The translated version though, was worth my patience.

Rating: 2 stars  

Random Things Tours: Shirk, Rest and Play by Andrew Grumbridge and Vincent raison

I used to spend an impressive amount of time many years ago reading various types of self-help books. I wanted to be successful, productive, maybe rich too, accomplish my aim while maintaining an equally successful personal life. I wanted all, and fast and there were no effort on my side big enough to stop me. And how I love my life back then! To be honest, I still do, but right now my self-help efforts is rather focused on learning to breath, to live and love...un-learning all those toxic habits that made me successful once.

Shirk, Rest and Play is a humorous yet realistic guide, with a "Biblical" touch. Ultimative yet strategic in approach. Procrastination is good and so is to just have some fun at a complicated job interview, by for instance wolfing on snakes and even taking your shoes off for a more comfortable experience. Hilarious and there will be not few who will already throw a psychiatric label on you, but who really cares? 

After all, life looks different when you really want to live it fully.

The cartoonish-like illustrations do match at a great extent the message and add to the overall hilarious note. But there is some truth beyond the layers of laugh: do we really want to end our short lives exhausted? Or being happy, surrounded by our friends and families and loved ones may be a better idea. This book my help you take the wisest decision of the century.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: The Trees by Percival Everett

 ´History is a motherfucker´.

Shortlisted for this year edition of Booker Prize, The Trees by Percival Everett is an ironic story based on a terrible episode in the history of racial relations: the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Likewise, the action of the book is set in Money, Mississippi, only that the victims of the series of lynchings are white. They also bear hilarious name, of the kind usually attributed to black protagonists: Granny C., Junior Junior, Wheat Bryant. 

The search for the culprits is done by black officers employed by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, but they are faced with an additional challenge: on the site of the crimes, which are multiplying from a day to another, a mysterious black man corpse appears and disappears. It´s the same over and over again.

The irony is intelligent and the references are obvious, however the literary layer involving the story development and the narrative, as well as character development. The Trees demonstrates that one can write about race and racial dissent in so many literary ways. Also, it´s a good reminder that irony can be such a powerful literary weapon.

Rating: 4 stars 

Rachel´s Random Resources: Yellow is for Sunflowers by Kathryn Freeman

 

Some relationships may seem unlikely until they really happen. This is the charm of love and romance. It happens in books and it happens in real life too. Going out of your social and sometimes religious and ethnic comfort zone is never easy - ´love will always win´ is not necessarily realistic - and the difficulties could be sometimes too hard to overcome. Therefore, books based on such conflictual situations are always an inspiration.

Yellow is for Sunflowers by Kathryn Freeman is one such Romantic story. Lia and Dean do belong to two different worlds. She is middle class, highly educated teacher. He is an expert in car repairing but without intellectual expectations. They met randomly while she has an issue with her car, but meet again, as she is the teacher of his brother. And the romance is going on and on, out of their control and beyond her family´s forecast.

The story in itself is the strongest point of the book. The characters are caught into the network of their connection and relationships. Their past is as important as their present and future, as it often interfers and challenges the characters. There are some tensionate moments and there is no guarantee for a happy ending, which makes the book romantically surprising.

Yellow is for Sunflowers is a comfort read for the weekend, raising questions and keeping the reader focused and entertained.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Titanic Tunnel by Glen Blackwell

Introducing tragical historical moments to children is not easy and although one may think that the storyfied versions offered to children are easier to create than a nonfiction cold account, nevertheless it requires a precise art of storytelling. Indeed, for a nonfictional story, all you need is to relate the facts, sometimes in a direct cruel way. For the story, one should convene a rare art of respecting the real life facts while creating a story which answers the preoccupations and interests of a specific age range. 

The Titanic Tunnel by Glen Blackwell is a time travel adventure book for midgrade children, set on the trails of the Titanic. While visiting Belfast, where the ship was built, the curious friends Emmie and Jack are brought back in time, at the begining of the 20st century, on the ill fated boat. Stuck back in time, they are carefully observing their environment and some strange creatures hiding in the dark that seem to be there not for a good cause. Thus, they should do their best to be out of the ship as soon as possible, before the tragedy.

It´s hard to keep the typical midgrade child focused unless you offer them a lot of adventure, a touch of mystery and eventually some riddles he or she should solve by him- or herself. The Titanic Tunnel has an entertaining style, with realistically depicted characters and an eventful story. Although it follows the track of the historical fiction it adorns it with stories and relatable characters one may be interested to find out more. Particularly the time travel element is very attractive for this age, and I remember myself often captivated about such topics when I was that age. Nowadays, it´s almost impossible to keep me interested into such stories.

The Titanic Tunnel is the second from the series featuring Emmie and Jack but can be easily read as a stand alone story. Even if you are no more belonging to the target age of the book, still the story is appealing and may keep you a long winter weekend busy. Anyway, I can´t wait for my son to grow up for him to discover this funny duo. I hope until then there will be even more series featuring them.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

´I just really need it to be a love story. You know! I really really need it to be that´.

Published at the peak of the discussions around the #MeToo Movement, My Dark Vanessa, the debut novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell, goes beyond the expectated take on abuse, delving with attention and empathy into the geography of trauma. 

#MeToo movement had a tremendous impact on reconsidering women bodies and relationships in general, also definying the limits of consent. From all over the world, more and more stories were told by victims that finally allowed themselves to break the years-long self-imposed painful silence. Definitely, in the specific context of the open discussion regarding consent sharing the hidden stories of trauma was possible as no more a socially suicidal gesture or a shameful testimony dismissed as lie. 

Vanessa, the woman character of My Dark Vanessa was abused by her teacher when she was 15, and had to leave the college she was enrolled. The teacher, her lover with whom she stayed in contact until his suicide, wrote an official letter not only denying the accusations but dismissing her as mentally troubled. Damaged for life, the once talented poet in the making refused to acknowledge the abuse and refused to join publicly other young girls who denounced the same teacher. And there is another teacher, H. Plough, she may be tempted to repeat the same scenario - because, after all, she was used with the same abusive scheme - but he it didn´t work out. 

The story in My Dark Vanessa, although one may feel more than once literally exasperated by her passivity and delusional attachment to the teacher, is exploring with a precise minutiae the labyrinth of trauma. How it does poison mind and soul, prevents normal relationships and professional achievements. It works in the case of any kind of trauma, particularly of a sexual nature. Vanessa´s emotional attachment to her abuser doesn´t have to do with her naivity of being in love with the wrong person, but with a dependency created through trauma. Such an abuse perpetrated at an age when the body and mind are in process of development has a destructive strength. 

The culture and cultural habits made possible stories like Vanessa´s. The English teacher recommended her Lolita abused for pedophilic reasons of all kind, the media is fascinated by schoolgirl types of women. Vanessa is not coming from a broker home, she is just a girl who was let blur the lines between the innocent favoritism of the teacher and sexual interest. It is so easy for that to happen at this age. But where is the choice of the teacher to be avoid the drama? And where is the protection network offered by the school?

Vanessa is a confusing character, by purpose mostly. A moment when I completely lost her as a ´human´ was the moment when the teacher commited suicide. Although it should not have been necessarily dramatic - after all, her trauma was finally disappearing - but in the book it is mentioned in few lines and there is no further plot development around this topic. 

My Dark Vanessa is an important contribution to the #MeToo literature and the stories about trauma and sexual abuse in general. I was impressed about the fine lines and observations, although I would have expected more subtelty in respect to the plot construction.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: Les Gens du Balto by Faïza Guène

 

One of the reasons I love to read as much as I can from an author is the chance of discovering within familiar circumstances - like topics, vocabulary, ideas - new and interesting literary approaches and play of styles. After my first Faïza Guène, Discretion - read in English translation - I continue with other two books by her, in the original French, though. Kiffe Kiffe Demain was unexpectedly humorous although playing hard on topics such as immigration and the life in the suburbs (quartier). Les Gens du Balto, goes one step further, creating a novel played on multiple voices with a crime plot.

One thing about reading a book in translation is that there are a lot of local nuances that one can taste only in the original language. Kiffe Kiffe and Les Gens...too, do have a very colourful vocabulary which me, as a French speaker I love to read in original. It has to do with a pleasure of reading and hearing words that you relate to, and slang is generally a very localised take on language. Thus, for anyone looking to update and upgrade their intimate knowledge of the language, Guène´s books are valuable source of information.

In Les Gens du Balto, a large cast of characters and their parents is investigated by the police in the case of a murder of a bar owner. Several are teenage voices, others are adults or their immigrants parents. With the usual humorous take, she created a murder story with a unique background. Every crime story is special and there are so many specific elements coming together - I am reading right now The Trees by Percival Everett which also has a crime setting but it goes far beyond it - which are pratically relevant for another understory line. The author manages to coordinate all the individual voices skillfully which supports the story development.

Discovering new young writer may be such a refreshing feeling, especially when one realizes they bring such a new take and approach on ideas like identity and belonging. By creating stories around them, the topics descend from the literary, philosophic and theoretic realm, to take a place within the everyday mentalities swift. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: The Harpy by Megan Hunter

 

Rarely a book has a writing coming so perfectly in places, where there is a right word to describe anything, in exactly the way in which it happens (using the verb to squirrel, for instance, to describe a restless movement that could have been described in hundred other ways). 

Using the Homeric motive of The Harpy, Megan Hunter is an anatomy of revenge, in the vein of the old Greek tragedies and the transgression of daily life into mythical shapes is fascinating. According to the legend, the harpy used to be a creature half-human (woman) half-bird, a symbol of unleashed genuine destructive energy. This background saves the book from being just another story of a stay-at-home mother who abandoned her promising professional career whose husband cheated on her.

Since Lucy, a thirty something middle class woman, suddenly receives a message from the husband of the woman the father of her children was having an affair, she started planning a careful physical revenge against her husband. He accepts the challenge of 3 revenges, unleashing the evil energy that we, as humans, may invest in damaging each other. She was affected psychologically and spiritually, but she will leave her traces on him in the most visible, physical way. The Harpy is awake...

The focus on the revenge - planning, unfolding, causes (predictably, a broken childhood in a family realm marked by violence) - may feel suffocating sometimes, but the story stops short from becoming nauseating. Every moments is perfectly crafted that I felt the need to read a sentence more than once, for spotting all the information and recreating the scenes once again at least once.

The Harpy has a unique take on a familiar, way too frequent recent literary topic. It demonstrates, among others, that extraordinary writing can save any single topic from boredom and common place.  

Rating: 4.5 stars

Random Things Tours: I Don´t Talk to Dead Bodies by Dr. Rhona Morrison

 

With 30 years of work for the NHS as forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Rhona Morrison gathered a lot of direct knowledge about human motivation and psychology. I Don´t Talk to Dead Bodies is an interesting collection of her encounters with human behavior spread over three decades rich in experiences. 

Her stories are shared with the details of the scientist and the empathy of the human who´ve seen way too much to take the risk of dismissing the complexities of the human brain. In such circumstances, the foreinsic psychiatrist is not a judge, but an expert whose role is to explain scientifically the reasons of a certain act or human behavior. 

The stories reproduced in this professional memoir are written in a vivid, even humorous way, which makes the scientific take more relatable. It offers valuable insights into a profession that rarely is publicly featured, but whose contribution not only to various judicial proceedings but to understanding of the human brain and behavior are very important.

Good medical memoirs are still hard to find, especially because they may have interesting things to say but lacking the writing skills, I Don´t Talk to Dead Bodies proved the opposite.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Kiffe Kiffe Demain

Faïza Guène is the voice of a new generations of writers writing in French, allowing the identities to permeate irreverently the unique discourse dictated by the elites. The counter-discourse of authors like her challenges the rhetoric aimed at imposing the definition of the ´good citizen´.

Guène´s Discretion was my first encounter with the work of this author, who started to publish from a very early age. In comparison, Kiffe Kiffe Demain is more direct and less elaborate, nevertheless echoing the France of the suburbs, through the eyes of Doria, 12 years old Muslim girl living in the suburbs of Paris. 

Her mother is illiterate, but working hard to learn how to read and therefore find a better paid job. The father went back to Morocoo and married a woman that can give him a child, preferably a boy. The neighbours do equally have stories to tell: one is enjoying the 6 months during which her husband is spending time to the other wife, in the home country; there are potential matches she is trying to find for her mother and boys ending up in prison. 

In Arabic, kif-kif means ´same old´, but the title is less pessimistic as we might expect. Instead, Doria´s voice - very well represented - is a focus on the life as it is. No ´French dream´ or immigrant´s sadness. A teenage girl can see the world through the ´quartier´ where she is living, without expectations therefore without disappointment. It´s a humorous take on life that I love. After all, isn´t the life short enough to cry about its shortcomings?

Her matter-of-factly attitude and the hilarious way of sharing her everyday story leaves you with a big smile on your face, while introducing to the reader a world as any other world. The stories though are part of an ambiance and of a context, and their unicity resides in the story themselves. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Corylus Books Blog Tour: Deceit by Jónína Leósdóttir translated by Sylvia and Quentin Bates

It seems there is no limit for how good the Icelandic literature can be. The latest title published by Corylus Books, Deceit, the first book by journalist and writer Jónína Leósdóttir to be translated into English by Sylvia Bates and Quentin Bates is just another example of ´Noir´ perfection. 

Set in Reykjavik during the Covid outbursts it follows the trace of gruesome crimes and dark secrets. Detective Soffía is trying to trace the culprit(s) with the help of her ex-psychologist husband Adam. 

Personally, I didn´t know what to expect from this book and my appetite for surprise was fully rewarded until the very end of the book. The scenery may look busy and overwhelmed - both in terms of action and characters - but there is nothing and no one out of place. However, some of the scenes and characters cannot be enough developed because they might have take too much place from the crime plot anyway. But there is definitely a plan according to which the details of the story were set, although the reader may feel at times as wandering blindly through a labyrinth of perfect darkness. Definitely, the dystopic Corona landscape adds even more thrilling to the story, as it integrates perfectly within the framework. 

Despite of sharing fears and new society and human relationships, we are now, after two years, all of us familiar with, the ambiance is though very local and although I haven´t been to Reykjavik I can relate to the realm of the book as an unique particular place from the literary point of view. 

The relationship between Soffía and Adam suits very well the dynamic of the story and even set the tone for various story developments. Both of them are very interesting characters, well defined, and through their interaction the story develops in unexpected ways. ´Noir´, including Icelandic one, can be written in so many ways, after all.

Deceit is just another example of extraordinary Icelandic writers of crime fiction and one of the many outstanding titles the courageous Corylus Books publishes. I can only hope that more books by Jónína Leósdóttir will be soon published and even more titles of Icelandic ´Noir´ fiction. I feel like there is an impressive amount of fiction from this country that we not even imagine how good it could be. I am open to the challenge.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Joy of Better Cooking by Alice Zaslavsky

´You are a better cook than you think you are´.

My cooking skills are a work in process and I suppose for the waste majority of cooking humans, the experience is similar. Even the most famous chefs may realise not only that they have a lot to learn, but also that a great meal may be the result of many random factors mixed several times together, such as mood, fresh ingredients, the right spices and many more.

The Joy of Better Cooking by multi-award winning Australian foodie journalist and author Alice Zaslavsky offers not only a fine selection of incredible recipes, but it´s also an invitation to sustainable consumption and zero waste. Written in a humorous and joyful style, the recipes included in the book include very detailed directions, introduced to the reader in a very appealing visual presentation. 

But although I may be tempted to try at least once each of the recipes, a couple of them seems to require my attention first: for instance, I can hardly resist the invitation to taste my own variant of broad bean, asparagus&soba noodle salad. Or, all seasons avocado half. Or a chocolate cloud French toast. Salt&Pepper Cream Caramel, anyone?

Better cooking means not only better cooking skills, but also a completely different take on food and its consumption. Zaslavsky put into words the needs and expectations of a new generation of food lovers and cooks, that are not only interested in enjoying the good, healthy food, but also in the ways in which it is produced and consumed. 

The Joy of Better Cooking is an inspiration and an example of sustainable cooking lifestyle and foodie pleasures. It may be that I first loved reading and afterwards my love for cooking developed, but nevertheless such cookbooks do encourage even the most reluctant cook to take their literary love for food to a completely new level of practicality. And now, please excuse myself but for the next weeks, I may be way too busy trying different delicious recipes from the book.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Red As Blood by Lilja Sigurðardóttir translated by Quentin Bates

 

After Cold As Hell, Lilja Sigurðardóttir continues the series featuring the financial investigator Áróra with a new installment, Red As Blood, translated from Icelandic by the same talented Quentin Bates and published by Orenda Books, an edition house I am always grateful to be given the chance to feature on my blog. 

This time Án Áróra still looking for her missing sister, alongside with her investigator friend Daniel, is requested to solve a case involving an unusual kidnapping - at least unusual for Iceland - of a middle class woman, Gudrun, by request of her husband, Flosi. Upon returning home, he discovered his house upside down and is sent a note to pay a significant ransom unless she will be killed.

Sigurðardóttir meticulously created an ambiance which is both local and profusely human. Crime and drama in general may affect everyone of us, even the happiest and non-eventful among us. We should not be criminals or with an evil mind. Crime can happen, just as happy events can happen. Another strong point of the book is in my opinion the well researched procedural part, which makes the reading interesting from the logical point of view. It makes the story even more relatable because it is supported by a realistic background, with legal explications. Fantasy rarely suits crime novels anyway. 

Although part of series, Red as Blood can be read independently, but Sigurðardóttir´s writing is so unsettling - in the good literary sense - that you may spend your next days reading everything she ever wrote. 

For the lovers of Nordic Noir novels and for those whose high tastes in excellent crime novels are uncompromising, Red as Blood is a recommended choice. It takes the reader alongside on the journey towards finding the truth and although guessing the ending is an almost impossible riddle, at least it is very much worth the journey. 

I bet I - as we all do - will meet Án Áróra pretty soon again.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger

 

Using a motif - online (fake) identities - previously explored elsewhere, Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger is a thriller exploring the dramatic power of trauma. 

At the first sight, it´s what one may expect to happen once in a while, when daring to go out on the web looking to find a match. The first chapters are mostly about Birdie´s entanglement with Adam, a handsome and generous single expert in cyber security. But as she is ghosted a couple of months into the relationship and she cannot trace him back - the apartment where he cooked for her is in fact an AirBnB whose expenses apparently he ´forgot´ to pay - and a private investigator is getting in touch with her after other girls the same ´Adam´ met on the dating app Torch disappeared, she starts to suspect there is something different here.

The moment when the story switches from the online dating drama to a more serious traumatic experience revealing her own identity issue, is unexpected. How else though to write about ´ghosting´ without being repetitive ? In Last Girl Ghosted the weight of trauma is larger than the story itself therefore the disbalance I sensed between the thriller expectations and the emotional exploration. 

There are also a couple of elements, especially towards the end of the story that are too sugary for my taste, but the fact that we are not aware that we are looking in our partners features of our parents - including psychologically abusive relationships - is largely relatable. 

Last Girl Ghosted plays well some mind games but becomes overhelmingly emotional without compensating on the action front. Nevertheless, the book has a creative literary perspective that deserves the bookish attention of any thriller lover around the web and the libraries.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Dependency: The End of the Copenhague Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

 

Dependency, a story of romance, motherhood and opioid addictions, is the closing chapter of the Copenhague Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen. 

Although the memoir in its entirety is calculately cold and is rather focused on the succession of events than on exploring internal emotional experiences, there is always a value in sharing one´s story. Within this framework, her writing is a permanent companion, although in this third installment, is rather an acknowledged reality. 

In Dependency - the title in Danish was Gift, which can mean either ´poison´ or ´married´ - she is working to her novel, an activity which makes her happy. Her spirit though is progressively becoming attached to a body craving opioids. While having an abortion she experiences Demerol that she will continue to take thereafter. Her Romantic relationship - an alcoholic, much older second husband, a fourth husband that seems to help her reducing the dependency. There are children, with different husbands, and a new chance for love that may heal her.

As in the previous volumes, the voice is rather neutral, as she is the chronicler of her own life, whose benchmarks she is carefully observing and further sharing with the rest of the world. There is a big difference in memorialistic style between Ditlevsen and the memoirs we are using nowadays. Instead of trying to understand herself and the world, she rather is recreating the timeline of the events, as an effort against the vanishing time.

Although I´ve read the three sequencies with a big timespan between but chronologically, reading them at once is rather a better solution as one can observe closely the different evolutions and changes the author went through. It also shares social and political episodes from the recent Danish history, despite the fact that there are less present in this last volume.

I had access to the books in the German translation from Danish by Ursel Allenstein. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Random Things Tours: Salamati by Hamed Allahyari with Dani Valent

For almost one month, the brave women and men in Iran took the streets again, fearless, protesting the end of the bloody religious dictatorship. Young women and men who were not allowed to know anything but the Islamic Republic are undeterred by the cruelty of their own people against them. Women-Life-Freedom is their motto uniting them despite the terror they lived under for over a generation. They have enough and even though our democracies seem to ignore their plea for support they will prevail. Sooner or later, they will have the life they deserve, the life every human being deserves.

The braindrain of educated, intelligent Iranians blessed the host countries not only with highly qualified skills, but also with the gift of the delicious Persian cuisine. Persian restaurants all over the world offer more than a menu, but a slice of generosity, hospitality and a food like no other.

Hamed Allahyari is no foreign of the hardships of the young generation growing up in Iran. After a periclous escape from the Islamic Republic, he made it to Australia where he is delighting the local palates with the best (to be honest, not sure what is less in terms of Persian cooking) of a cuisine that once you have a taste of it, you cannot live without it. Together with local food writer Dani Valent he shares Recipes and Stories from Iran to the other side of the world, reunited under Salamati - the Persian word for Cheers. 

As everything in the Persian culture, the word has more than one meening, convening a welcoming spirit and a generosity that some may not be aware of. But, again, the Persian culture that produced King Cyrus is older than a bunch of clerics with blood on their hands without a proper knowledge of what they are preacing about. I bet that Cyrus will be reminded instead of the above mentioned ephemeral cartoonish individuals. 

Food and recipes do tell complex cultural stories and Salamati is an anthropological inquiry into the eating habits and social structures. How can one keep for oneself such delicious dishes ? (well, I can live on shole zard for months and I don´t see why should I share my golden pudding with anyone but I´m not Persian anyway). Those dishes are usually made to be shared and tasted and further transmitted to the next generation. It´s a whole education of the palate here...

There is a certain complexity of recipes that one learn while watching their mother preparing it, compared to someone learning it from a cookbook. In Salamati, everything is made simple without being simpler. I tried, for instance, the iconice omelette with dates (Mazafati, of course) and it went out very easy and tasty too. Thus, the passionate cook, aimed to go on a journey to Iran - preferably as for now, only virtually, because having a foreign passport those day may give a reason strong enough to kidnap and imprison you, just another lucrative business of the greedy mullah - can start it with this good looking book of tasty recipes. On my foodie cards I do have the fesenjoon, a pomegranate and walnuts stew I can take my mind off it.

Salamati is a comfort read for those longing for their home country but also for those who dream one day to be able to visit it and have a taste of the original hospitality and rich cultural heritage of Iran. The brave people of Iran will be happy to show their real country to the curious Western eyes, ignoring that they were left alone when they needed more than ever support and encouragement.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

There are so many stereotypical ways to describe the strength of a book taking you from one environment to another, across centuries and historical events. Some books actually do it, through a kind of wordly teleporting from your couch to streets of far away cities and ages back in time, getting to know characters that sound and behave as real as your blood and flesh neighbours. This is what happened to me while reading the Shrines of Gaiety, but award-winner bestseller writer Kate Atkinson. 

I am well familiar with the streets of London, including Soho where the most of the action is taking place, but couldn´t figure out by myself how it used to look like during the 1920s, in between one big bloody war and another. The best time to enjoy life at its fullest because there may be not tomorrow.

A short mention before getting deeper into the content: The cover it´s outstanding. I had access to the book in e-format, but had the chance to see some videos featuring it and it has that Art Nouveau touch that I love for the sake of the beauty. I am always pleased to see edition houses investing considerably not only in delivering a flawless story but also an inspiring visual format.

Returning to the book story, it features a brave woman Nellie Coker, the head of a nightclub empire in the Soho´s underworld. Inspired by Kate Meyrick, a real life queen of clubs, Nellie is also managing a complex family with six kids, most of them involved at certain degrees in the nightlife business. And, indeed, nightlife in London and everywhere is a hard business, especially during troubling times when people of all backgrounds crave for entertainment and an alternative to an increasingly grey reality. Thus, there is a highly in demand social function the clubs are supposed to fulfill.

Action-craving people - as me sometimes - may be slightly disappointed by the rather horizontally oriented story: more on describing characters and ways than keeping the reader under the pressure of the unexpected turns of the action. However, it is a reminder that not so long ago, I honed my social observation skills based on novels by Dickens and Zola, so typical for ages of great social upheaval like the historical period featured in the book.

The miscellany of characters is each and every one recomposing a mirror of a society on the brinks of a nervous breakdown. In the rhythm of jazz, the notes of the society are made and remade at high speed. Society, like us, humans, doesn´t tolerate fast change easily. Thus, the unfolding drama and dramatism of the situations featured and the need to have some law-and-order representative like detective Frobisher, like many books set in Germany´s Weimar Republic do as well.

It´s hard to leave a book like Shrines of Gaiety because it is so precisely written that one feels like being part of the literary story as well (honestly, leaving Soho for good is not always an easy decision). It may explore topics similar with other writers and books across decades of the last century, but it does it in a very unique way. It is a reminder of how literature can have a powerful social impact and how history and historical facts in general could be creatively explored with a fresh touch no matter how many times.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Random Things Tours: Betty Boo by Claudia Piñeiro translated by Miranda France

I got to read my first book by Claudia Piñeiro a couple of months ago - Elena Sabe/Elena Knows - and found completely obsolete to attempt a genre classification as it does uses different angles and plot layers that makes the book unique yet avoiding any categories.

However, nothing prepared me for the encounter with Betty Boo, translated from Argentinian Spanish by author and translator Miranda France. Set in the journalistic milieu of Buenos Aires, it is built around a crime discovered in the rich and famous compound La Maravillosa. Journalist and thriller writer Nurit - nicknamed Betty Boo for her ressemblance with the iconic cartoon with almost a similar name (actually Boop) - is assigned to cover the case. However, she may get involved at a certain extent in solving the crime, while getting entangled into a love story she is fighting to keep.

But there is definitely more to the story than crime and love: the tormented social and political history of Argentina is brought into question, not only as a background but as part of a reality that it determines at a significant extent. And last but not least, there is a subtext focused on women stories and social and age limitations.

There are so many elements that often happened to completely forget that I should focus on a crime story. It seemed that I also forgot the beauty of the stories within the stories, that used to fascinate me many years ago when I was discovering and exploring the Argentinian writers.  

Betty Boo - which was turned into a movie Betibu - is a beautifully intelligent book, a pleasure to read, an invitation to reconsider literature as a whole experience, beyond different classifications that in fact, may not have anything to do with the literary talent and craftsmanship. Besides being keen on watching the movie as well, this book inspired me to get back more often to the Argentinian literature but also to explore more of Piñeiro´s books. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: Ahead of the Shadows by A.B.Kyazze

 

After the eventful debut of Into the Mouth of the Lion, London-based British-American writer and photographer A.B.Kyazze continued her storytelling based in conflict areas with a new book - Ahead of the Shadows. 

In an unique way, Kyazze underlines through her storytelling moral choices and ethical remorses, while creating a catching story with relatable characters. Lena is an international photographer whose photography is mostly covering conflict areas in Central and Eastern Africa. She is getting involved with her boss, Kojo and their professional lives and challenges are often reflected into their relationship and their personal interactions. 

Lena is tormented by the hopeless and sadness of her subjects she is covering through her photographic pictures. Is her phototaking enough to change the world? Or rather it is her infatuation to take an advantage, of any kind, of someone else´s miserable condition to turn it into and uses is as a professional opportunity. 

Another important point raised in the story underlines the generational trauma that does generates in individuals having survived or went through dramatic experiences like war. Life under duress in general determines a different kind of human interactions and the perception of what does it matter, with the choices between life and death looming in the background. Both the characters and the situations they are into it in Ahead of the Shadows are moulded by those extreme conditions, therefore possibly judged beyond the good and evil.

Especially for those who do have a direct experience of being alive and reporting in conflict zones, this book offers a lot of relatable food for thought as well as situations easy to figure out in real life. I am personally glad that such books exist because outlining the complex ethics of the journalistic profession rarelly happens and outsiders to the profession may be easily tempted to utter judgements without acknowledging what the exact circumstances may be. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Break-Up Agency by Sheila McClure

What about if instead of breaking up with your significant other, you are outsourcing the service to a specialized company that, in addition, will take care of the other person´s feelings in a gentle and diplomatic way? That´s the mission of Ellie Shaw´s Softer Landings. 

But sometimes, her professional mission is getting too personal, as she decides to break up with ther boyfriend American Dan. One year after though, his new girlfriend may need some Soft Landing approach and Ellie is faced with a difficult challenge, as it looks like there is something left between her and Dan. 

At the first sight, The Break-Up Agency by Sheila McClure is that kind of book one may adore reading during the weekend or on a holiday at the beach. However, it is much more than that, because in fact the entire setting - why, for example, may someone help ending up the relationship when the partnership is the responsibility of the persons directly involved - begs for a more serious approach. One of the reasons, in fact, I am so interested in reading this kind of literature is because it reveals not few ideas about real life and real interactions. The bonus of this book is to include in the web of the story various details of break-ups and the reasons they happened. It´s another way in which books, any kind of books, may help us navigate the life´s hardships.

Ellie is by far my favorite character: thoughtful, responsible, strong but also vulnerable and fragile. She is highly relatable and the contexts created for her do outline and enrich her personality. 

The Break-Up Agency is built on an ingenious idea while exploring the modern web of relationships. It is funny yet thoughtful enough to keep your autumn weekend intellectually busy.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Book Review: Die Siegerin/Victorious by Yishai Sarid translated into German by Ruth Achlama

 

Abigail, once a gifted child, is a psychologist helping the Army to win wars. Her father, a well known Freudian, is chronically ill. Her son, Shauli just joined the military service and would change her way of considering victory and war achievements in general. Her relationships are rather temporar, mostly former or current patients, most of them suffering of post-traumatic stress disorder. The father of her son is a happily married chief of staff with whom she had a one-night stand.

Those elements appear in the latest book by Israeli writer Yishai Sarid, Victorious - translated into German as Die Siegerin by Ruth Achlama. Sarid´s The Memory Monster was one of the most thoughtful books I´ve read the last year and I couldn´t wait to get my eyes on Victorious. However, although the context - war, an Army psychologist doubting the belief into her own work - offers a number of interesting combinations of plots, - predictable at a certain extent though, in the end prevailed a story self centered on Abigail´s.

The story is exclusively a first person account lacking sometimes the counter story which may be revealing and adding complexity to the story. A self-centered story is nothing more than a self-cetered story excluding any other narrative. Even though in a way it is predictable where the story goes - once her son is getting into the army her views on victory, military victory are put on trial -, in this case it is definitely no effort to bring more complexity and depth. In the end, everything goes just in the middle, with no radical break-up. Abigail does not contest the system openly - also a predictable outcome but at least makes the characters alive, and generally she does hurry up to decide, except when she decided to have her boy. 

Although I may understand the importance of introspection and of a ´me´ story I may confess that Die Siegerin/Victorious haven´t caught my interest too much. But the translation is very good therefore at least I was able to spend some time improving my vocabulary. 

Rating: 3 stars

Random Things Tours: The Moose Paradox by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

The hilarious The Rabbit Factor series continue with a new installment featuring the irresistible insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen. Out on 27th of October at Orenda Books, one of my top favorite edition houses, The Moose Paradox by Antti Tuomainen translated from Finnish by David Hackston is hard to put down as both well written (and translated), entertaining and suspenseful. Seriously, think about the title: the majestic The Moose Paradox! It rhymes with the carefully introspective voice of Henri but goes far away from a simple game of words. 

Indeed, it is a paradox why Toy of Finland may refuse to deliver to YouMeFun adventure park - the adventure park Henri work hard to build since we parted ways with him at the end of The Rabbit Factor - the beloved Moose Chute and is keen to offer instead the Crocodile Canyon. 

Therefore, there is definitely a lot of action taking place, and there is also the love story of Henri and Laura that deserves some fresh take since the previous book. Maybe reading The Rabbit Factor before The Moose...is not necessary but some extra laughing sessions are more than welcomed, especially now when the cold weather threaten to cut all the fun in our lives. 

Although Henri seems lost sometimes in the realm of cumulative conjectures and he seems to be followed - intellectually, of course, this is not a ghost story - by Schopenhauer, he still remains an outstanding planner, trying to figure out the details of a successful business endeavour.

The story is well coordinated both through the actions, the suspenseful twitches and hilarious moves. Definitely, Tuomainen´s writing may make you laugh to tears, but he is a serious writer with an organised mind, setting a plan as carefully calculated as any mathematical planning created by Henry Koskinen.

The Moose Paradox is definitely one of the most humorous books I´ve read in a while and I can´t wait to read, hopefully soon, the last installment of the trilogy. Although, saying ´good bye´ to such a cast of characters may not be easy at all.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own