Orenda Books Book Tour: Ɐlfa by Lilja Sigurðardóttir translated by Larissa Kyzer

 

In the Reykjavik of 2052, there is no crime. Europe itself is crime-free, since Ɐlfa, an AI efficient system is controlling everything. But when a dissident who is outside the reach of the system is found murdered, the sense of balance and safety is about to be broken: wasn´t crime supposed to be eliminated? 

As the dissident´s sister is decided to elucidate the murder, her search for the truth must lead her in the most unexpected governmental corridors that jeopardize the assumption of safety and legality publicly imposed to date.

Ɐlfa by multi-awarded Icelandic crime writer Lilja Sigurðardóttir and translated by Larissa Kyzer published by Orenda Books explores actual topics set in an uncertain future. The tension, the dark emotions and mystery, so unique to her books, are also present in Ɐlfa, only that it receives an atemporal echo in the chambers of a dystopian universe. 

Coming from someone really careful with the choice of dystopian, speculative fiction, this book was excellent. It showed not only the versatile of speculative mystery but also the creative strength of Sigurðardóttir, an author I had the chance to read and review on several occasions. 

Rating: 5 stars

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

Unread by Oliver James

I´ve seen it lately in Germany, I knew it operates since years in France and other European countries, I´ve heard about what happens in the States: young people from disadvantaged backgrounds - be it social, ethnic, health - are underserved by the education system. We may be proud of the free education and equal chances for all, but in the end, the success comes to those - parents - who do have resources, knowledge and connections to support their children. Those from struggling families rarely do it anywhere better beyond the compulsory education system. 

There is a lot to say and write about it and hopefully will address it in a lengthy video one day. Those thoughts - that as a mother and educator I deal at least few times the week - were amplified by the reading of Oliver James memoir Unread. James, who has a 300k+ followers on TikTok where she is under oliverspeaks1, is a California-based personal trainer, motivational speaker and literary activist. He also learned reading in his late 30s, and the book is a personal and emotional account of this journey.

Under the label of ´difficult children´ hides often learning impairments that can be fixed as long as discovered and treated seriously earlier. Understanding sentence structures beyond the isolate words is a skills that some need support to handle. And when school and educators fail, young people may end as James did, a troubled young man serving prison time.

Reading is also something we are taking for granted. Without basic and medium literacy we cannot survive this world. We need people to rely on, we depend on other people to fill taxes, forms, sign. I´ve been involved with adults unable to read, mostly women, and they lived in the shadow of others - children, man of the house...The lack of reading skills, and the struggle to hid it, leads to isolation, worsening of the mental health condition.

And there is also another reason why we need reading into our lives, and James is in full honesty enthusiastically sharing: the magic of stories. The ways in which feelings can be experienced, the push towards going to places our imagination only can lead us, it comes first as a shock to the system. This is the reading muscle is developing and our understanding of life expands.

I appreciated Unread as a direct, candid sometimes, account that has the value of testimony witnessing the shortcomings of educational systems and the need to offer alternative, grass root support to the so-callled ´difficult child´ tailored according to their specific learning and social needs.  

Rating: 4 stars

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

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Little Campside by the Sea by Elizabeth Holland

Beth is back from London to her childhood home in Llancariad, a small village in Wales, to help her mother in process of recovering from an accident. The little campside built by her parents that used to attract tourists once upon a time is in a very bad shape. Her childhood friend, Rhys is still around, supporting her mother and voluntarily contribute to the campsite maintenance works.

But there is a secret looming between them, related to Beth´s decision to leave for London, ten years ago. Would this return open up old wounds or is she strong enough to face her past?

The Little Campside by the Sea by Elizabeth Holland was tempting for me as it is set in the beautiful Wales. It does contain the ingredients of a cosy romantic read - enemies to lovers and the motif of the ´old flame´ reignited after many years of absence. However, this book has another meaningful substory tounching upon the topic of school bullying and how does it affects long term. It is an aspect rarely entering the romance genre but I am glad it happens.

The book is well paced, with Beth and Rhys alternatively sharing their point of views. Beth is my favorite character, for her reflexive way and the strength of acknowledging her limits and struggles. 

I´ve learned a lot about bullying as a traumatic experience, but also enjoyed being part of the characters´ life.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

Audition by Katie Kitamura

 

Everyone in the bookish realm in France right now seems to read Audition by Katie Kitamura right now. No matter how much I love reading in French - more than words can say - I rather wanted to read the original English version, but I can understand why the book may have been so successful there: the poetry of the language and the fluidity of the prose are suited very well for certain literary preferences in the Hexagon.

Like in Intimacies, the main storyteller, a woman, is not named. This time, she is an actress, on an audition, and her profession invites to ambiguity. There is a young man, Xavier, she mets at the beginning, ´half her age´, without letting her husband know, who ends up - through a seizure of the narrative - as the son writing a play for his mother. 

This ambiguity however is diffusing the scene, as almost every single episode and encounter in the book can be read from at least two perspectives. More than a story, Audition is an intellectual approach: as a literary/intellectual encouter it provokes the reaction of the reader, requests our intellectual involvement. We are lost in so many details, but the meaning, as well as the chain of events escape us completely. As a reader, you feel amnesiac, unable to trace the events and their cause. After all, it´s an audition.

Audition is under 200 pages, but I needed more than a week to read this book. The writing is so dense that every few paragraphs requested time for thinking and dissecting. 

The book is maybe too experiemental as I expected, but nevertheless chiselled in the smallest details. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Deutscher Buchpreis 2026: Memories of Heidelberg by Heinz Strunk

Heinz Strunk was back this year on the Deutscher Buchpreis longlist with a short book about an old age love story.

In Memories of Heidelberg, Bertram and Isolde - thanks Gd but in my 20+ years in Germany I never met or heard about someone bearing such names - are spending time in the city. Both are seniors, no physical attraction is left between them and especially for Bertram he is slowly losing the control of some of his body functions. Mostly, they spend their time separately, except for the dinner time, where they often go to an Italian restaurant situated on a boat.

The back and forth of their daily contacts, with the 1968 hit of Peggy March, Memories of Heidelberg, in the background. As expected, the leitmotiv is a reminder of the good, youthful times, obviously gone for ever.

I had the chance to read all the books from the Deutscher Bucher list this year - more about it in the next months posts - but this book touched the lowest level for me. The writing is focused on the moment, describing scenes and emotions in detail but it doesn´t go too far neither in terms of story development or character development. 

The ending is grotesque, but for me was the best moment in the book, waking me up from the long sleep of reading 150 pages leading to it. 

Some books, and authors, are just not meant to be for me, and this is perfectly fine to acknowledge it. 

Rating: 2.5 stars

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

Das schönste aller Leben by Betty Boras

Once upon a time, Central and Eastern Europe used to be very diverse culturally and linguistically. But dictatorships, of all kinds, do not accomodate diversity. Most of those things past belong to stories now, as the memories are fading and the places where the ancestors were born are just images on worned out sepia photos.

The German minority in Romania used to play an important cultural and economic role - including as role model - for the majority. But faced with an oppressive system - see what happened to Aktionsgruppe Banat - many left the country indefinitely, not before the German authorities paid roughly 2 billion DM to the corrupt communist thugs. (It happened the same for the Jews) 

Since living in Germany, was curious to read more about the stories of people I used to know very well. As facts, I knew the struggle some had for anpassen - adapt to a slightly new language (the dialects spoken for generations needed a modern upgrade) and economic and educational system.

Personalities like Herta Müller and her late ex-husband Richard Wagner belonging to the Banat Swabians - mostly of Austrian origin, who settled here in the 18th century when Banat was a province of the Austrian Empire, out of which around maximum 20,000 remain nowadays, from 170,000 post WWII population - maintained the cultural memories of this minority - both in Romania and in Germany - in the public space but I still struggle to find more meaningful connections. 

However, new German authors within the German literary realm joined recently those proeminent voices. Das schönste aller Leben - The most beautiful life of all, in my own translation - by Betty Boras - herself born in Romania and relocated to Germany as a child with her family - made such a difference in the understanding and maintaining the memories of the Banat Swabians.

A transgenerational story of two women, Das schönste aller Leben is a complex journey of becoming stronger than the randomness of the destiny. Theresia and Vio, through centuries, share the same Herkunft/Origin rooted in the earth of Banat, who in the book wisely connects the two characters and their struggles - with their destinies and their general condition.  

The voice is very authentic, with no remorse and anger for what was left behind and why. As Vio in the end, it´s the wise acknowledgment of fate and the effort towards building ´the most beautiful life of all´ that may prevail. Specifically about the writing, I loved how the small scenes are written with love for detail and focus on all the small things that do make our life beautiful, although at first we may not be aware of it.

I just wish this book will be one day translated into Romanian as well.

Rating: 4 stars

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah

In my literary quest to explore as many as possible realms, Theft by 2021 Nobel Prize laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah took me to the postcolonial Zanzibar following the destinies of three young people - Karim, Fauzia and Badar - as they are coming of age, while experiencing betrayal and personal changes in a society changing itself at the beginning of the 1990s.

The very detailed prose is following not only the turmoil of the inner lives of the characters, but also the changing social context, affecting the personal circumstances of the characters. For instance, Karim´s relationship with his mother, who moved with her new husband to Zanzibar. Karim is left with his other relatives, and will be hosted by her, but will also prefer being more with the other students on campus during his studies. Badar, who is accused of theft, but saved by Karim and offered a new job in a hotel, is learning to use the computer and is able to search for places all over the world via Google Street images. 

The characters are well acquainted with the power of knowledge that they are pursuing in different ways and with different aims, and clearly with different consequences: Karim will end up separating from the traditional world, Fauzia will follow his dream of becoming a teacher, Badar will use it to explore the world through his mind but moderately keen to break the rules.

The shadow of a theft - as appropriation of something that doesn´t belong, symbolically or factually, is the thin thread crossing the individual stories shared by the three main characters, who are nevertheless intertwinning. 

It is hard to resist the flow of the story and the immersion into the life of the characters. We are privy to their decisions but left on ourselves as for a judgement.

Theft was Gurnah´s first book after winning the Nobel Prize and was published the last year. 

I don´t know why did it took so long to read this author, but I am definitely inspired to continue the literary exploration of his work. 

Rating: 4.5 stars