rereading this classic - a forever favorite

Loved this! New favorite

Kind of a shame to show this lame kindle screen, considering the epic perfection of the US cover. Conclusion, on finishing the book: gripping and rich, like A Darker Shade of Magic. But - I want the record to reflect that I hate when novels end on such cheap cliffhangers. Second in a trilogy syndrome but IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS.

"the wind crashes against the sides of my head in waves, and the purr of the engine is like a mechanical om, shivering through me. the road rushes past and instead of struggling to possess it, I remember to exhale and feel the buzz of the pavement against my tires, the thrum of the open throttle beneath my palm. I remember that I don't own this road; I'm just using it."

on my to read list for years, only now getting around to cracking its (electronic) spine.

perfect company for summer nights. I planning to read this mostly in bed under the comforting buzz of my window ac unit, but it ended up as company for muggy/sweaty/stinky subterranean waits in the hellacape that is summer safetracking in the DC metro. not totally inappropriate given how much the Paris metro features, and the narrator's general air of listless despair.
#booksintranslation #paris

"At first it seemed that the unbreathable sultriness of those summer nights was our influence, our muse - but if might have been the opposite."

More substance and less gimmick than than I expected. Solid writing and convincing narrative, but overall meh.

Pre-crisis stories from contemporary Greece
#intranslation #booksintranslation #greece

DC, man. If this novel didn't help me like DC any more, it at least helped me feel less isolated in my dislike? My criticism of The Hopefuls is that it was too long, and the second half of the Book dragged on and on. Basically the entire section set in Texas could have been condensed, and a leaner, tighter manuscript would've been a service to the story. Wouldn't necessarily recommend to everyone, but it felt like the right book for where I am.

Some good, some bad, but it's nice to read Minnesota stories

Grim, grim, grim. Rural island life, crushing misogyny and patriarchy, infanticide.

A good companion for the dog days of high summer, with its descriptions of Mediterranean breezes, cheese and watermelon by the sea, muggy nights fighting mosquitoes and stifling heat. I'm now interested in finding more Cypriot lit in translation

A nice poolside novel, and I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from giving it a try, but I wish it was a little meatier

- epigram to the swimming pool library

A velvety beat up old paperback from the library discard pile. Something delicious about the way old library books read.

This has been hugely hyped. Sometimes I get a little lackadaisical when it comes to my weird internal roster of what I think of as capital A "American" novelists. It's not that I don't like their writing, but this kind of sprawling domestic drama doesn't really scratch my itch. The characters are dysfunctional and crazy but so so middle class and lily white - there's a spookiness or wildness missing. Still, I inevitably enjoyed it.

I had taught myself German out of Teach Yourself German, and recognized several words in this sentence at once:
"It is truly something and something which the something with the something of this something has something and something, so something also this something might something at first something."

1960s Italian graphic novel about Orfi, a Milanese pop star traveling through the underworld searching for his lost girlfriend. This book is so European. Grimy, dark, sixties, euro-stylr magical realism, unsexy sex, an appropriately grim Orpheus retelling.

Picked up from a pansiyon in Foça after finishing the single novel I'd brought with me for a 2-day trip. It took some serious cajoling by my traveling companion during packing to get me to leave behind my backup book, and Towers was my punishment for not sticking to my guns and bringing enough reading material. A more exhaustive history of Anglicanism than I'll ever need + British colonists abroad = not making it past chapter 5 on this one.

Loved this. Lively, complex, honest. A juicy capture of Athens in the 1970s-90s. It's been more than a month since I finished the novel and I keep going back to it, thinking about certain lines and images. So much more energetic and wily and interesting in its digressions than anything else I've read lately and just Yes! We need books like this!