Tag: Shiny New Books

Greek Lessons by Han Kang: a Shiny New Books review

5th May 2023 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

Back in 2015, I read The Vegetarian by Han Kang (tr. Deborah Smith). I loved it, and went on to be my favourite book of the year. Human Acts was my favourite book of the following year, too. Han became a must-read author for me, which brings me to her latest book in translation.

Greek Lessons (tr. Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won) concerns a language learner who’s lost the ability to speak, and a language teacher losing the ability to see. It’s about the intimacy of language, and how these two characters eventually forge a connection. I’m please to have reviewed it for Shiny New Books, which is also where I reviewed The Vegetarian.

Read my review of Greek Lessons here.

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle): Shiny New Books review

23rd November 2021 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I had a review elsewhere, but there’s a new one up now at Shiny New Books. This time it’s a book from Charco Press: Elena Knows by the Argentinian author Claudia Piñeiro (translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle. Elena is an old woman with Parkinson’s, whose daughter Rita has been found hanging in the church belfry. Elena is convinced that this must be murder, and she’s travelling across the city to see someone who may be able to help her learn more.

Of all the Charco books I’ve read, I think this may be my favourite. It explores themes of identity and motherhood, and the limits of what we can know about other people – and it conveys vividly how Elena’s life is structured around her condition.

Click here to read my review of Elena Knows in full.

That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry: a Shiny New Books review

9th December 2020 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

I have a new review up at Shiny New Books, looking at Kevin Barry’s third story collection, That Old Country Music. I love Barry’s short fiction, and this book is no exception: tales rooted deeply in the west of Ireland, characters navigating contemporary life while older rhythms hum in the background, all told in Barry’s distinctive voice.

Read my review in full here.

Book published by Canongate.

Read my other posts on Kevin Barry’s work here.

Books of the 2010s: Fifty Memories, nos. 20-11

7th June 2020 / David Hebblethwaite / 4 Comments

Welcome to the fourth part of my countdown of reading memories from the 2010s. You can read the previous instalments here: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21.

Something I’ve found interesting about this instalment in particular is that a couple of the books here (The Wake and Lightning Rods) just missed out on a place in my yearly list of favourites when I first read them. But they have stayed with me over the years, and their placing on my list reflects that.

This is one of my reasons for making this list: to see how my feelings about different books have (or haven’t) changed.

On to this week’s memories…

Three reviews: Ogawa, Dusapin, Mesa

4th June 2020 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

Today I’m rounding up three reviews that I’ve had published on other websites in the last few months. I would recommend all of these books…

First, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder). It’s one of my favourite books from this year’s International Booker Prize, a tale of loss set on an island where things disappear from living memory without warning. I’ve reviewed it for Strange Horizons.

The second book is Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins). The narrator is a young woman working at a guest house in the South Korean tourist town of Sokcho, who’s ill at ease with her life. The novel is a quiet exploration of a moment when that might be about to change. I’ve reviewed Winter in Sokcho for Shiny New Books.

Finally, we have Four by Four by Sara Mesa (translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore). This is a novel about the use and abuse of power, set in an exclusive college. I’ve reviewed the book for European Literature Network.

Elmet – Fiona Mozley: a Shiny New Books review

12th September 2017 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

The shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize will be announced tomorrow. One of the titles that might make an appearance is Elmet, the debut by British writer Fiona Mozley. It’s an intriguing novel about a family living outside the frameworks of modern law and society – and I’ve reviewed it here for Shiny New Books.

Book details

Elmet (2017) by Fiona Mozley, JM Originals, 320 pages, paperback (review copy).

Some reviews elsewhere

16th December 2016 / David Hebblethwaite / 1 Comment

I haven’t been posting links to my external reviews lately, so here’s a round-up of the most recent four: all books that are worth your time.

The Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade (tr. Samuel Rutter). Twenty-five years after being evacuated to England, two sisters return to the Galician parish of their childhood. The place is otherworldly to them, but they also have a glamour of their own – and so mystery encroaches on the reader from all sides. Reviewed for European Literature Network.

Beast by Paul Kingsnorth. Second part of the thematic trilogy that began with The Wake. This volume is set in the present day, and focuses on an Englishman in search of his place in the landscape. A strange creature haunts the corner of his eye, and his language grows more primal as he heads further into hallucination. Reviewed for Shiny New Books.

The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome by Serge Brussolo (tr. Edward Gauvin). A tantalising slice of weirdness set in a reality where art is retrieved from the depths of dreams. One man believes that the dream realm has its own objective existence – and he’ll risk his very self to prove it. Reviewed for Strange Horizons.

The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler (tr. Charlotte Collins). A new novel in English from the author of A Whole Life. The tale of a young man who becomes a tobacconist’s apprentice in 1930s Vienna and strikes up a friendship with Sigmund Freud. Love begins to stir, just as the shadow of the Nazis grows. Reviewed for European Literature Network.

Women in Translation Month and a Shiny review of The Queue

20th August 2016 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

August is Women in Translation Month, a project started by Meytal of Biblibio, and now in its third year. I haven’t had as much time for reading and blogging this month as I’d wanted (though I still hope to be able to squeeze in a relevant post or two). However, I have been recommending a book each day on Twitter and Facebook, so do feel free to pop over and take a look.

I also have a review of a book by a woman in translation in the August issue of Shiny New Books. The Queue by Egyptian author Basma Abdel Aziz (translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette) is the story of a Middle Eastern city where everything needs a permit, and society has rearranged itself around one big queue. The novel is absurd, but also chilling as it reveals just how much of a hold the authorities have.

Read my review of The Queue here.

Book details (Foyles affiliate link)

The Queue (2013) by Basma Abdel Aziz, tr. Elisabeth Jaquette (2016), Melville House UK paperback

Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue: a Shiny New Books review

4th June 2016 / David Hebblethwaite / 2 Comments

I’m back at Shiny New Books with a review of a new Mexican novel: Álvaro Enrigue’s Sudden Death (translated by Natasha Wimmer). As I note in my introduction, there’s some really exciting fiction from Mexico appearing in my translation (see my posts on books by Yuri Herrera, Paulette Jonguitud, and Juan Pablo Villalobos, for example); Sudden Death is no exception.

How to describe it, though? The novel is built around a game of tennis between Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo. But it also deals with the forces that shaped the formation of the modern world in the 16th and 17th centuries – and which, perhaps, still help to shape the world today. A synopsis can’t do it justice; you just have to read it.

A few links:

My review of Sudden Death.
The main Shiny New Books site.
Sudden Death reviewed at Winstonsdad.
A couple of interesting interviews with Álvaro Enrigue.

Book details (Foyles affiliate link)

Sudden Death (2013) by Álvaro Enrigue, tr. Natasha Wimmer (2016), Harvill Secker paperback

The Miner: Shiny New Books review

10th October 2015 / David Hebblethwaite / 0 Comments

There’s a new issue of Shiny New Books in the world, and I’ve reviewed for it a new translation of a classic Japanese novel: The Miner by Natsume Sōseki, first serialised in 1909, and now published by Aardvark Bureau in a fresh translation from Jay Rubin.

The Miner is narrated by a young man who flees from Tokyo and his broken relationship, and finds work in a copper mine. The focus of the novel is very much on the narrator’s state of mind, the psychological landscape through which he travels:

The more I walk, the deeper I can feel myself tunneling into this out-of-focus world with no escape. Behind me, I can see Tokyo, where the sun shines, but it’s already part of a different life. As long as I’m in this world, I can never reach out and touch it. They’re two separate levels of existence. But Tokyo is still there, warm and bright, I can see it-so clearly that I want to call out to it from the shadows. Meanwhile where my feet are going is a formless, endless blur, and all I can do for the rest of my life is wander into this enormous nothing, lost.

Read the full review here.

Book details (Foyles affiliate link)

The Miner (1909) by Natsume Sōseki, tr. Jay Rubin (2015), Aardvark Bureau paperback

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Tag: Shiny New Books

Greek Lessons by Han Kang: a Shiny New Books review

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Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro (tr. Frances Riddle): Shiny New Books review

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That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry: a Shiny New Books review

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Books of the 2010s: Fifty Memories, nos. 20-11

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Three reviews: Ogawa, Dusapin, Mesa

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Elmet – Fiona Mozley: a Shiny New Books review

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Some reviews elsewhere

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Women in Translation Month and a Shiny review of The Queue

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Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue: a Shiny New Books review

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The Miner: Shiny New Books review

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