Most memorable reads of 2025 : my awards
It’s that time of year again! Time to look back on my 2025 reading adventures. I had set personal goals, with projects like Tame the TBR, Reading with Séverine or the Gallmeister Challenge. They went...
View ArticleOne Minus One by Ruth Doan Macdougall – an excellent novella set in New...
One Minus One by Ruth Doan Macdougall. (1971) Not available in French. I discovered One Minus One by Ruth Doan Macdougall via Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust and her rediscoveries. That’s how I also read The...
View ArticleReading plans for 2026: fun, knowledge and book buddies
Reading Plans ! January, brand new year, brand new reading plans. I’m always like a kid in a candy store when I’m in front of bookshelves. I want to read all the books at once but I can’t. So I’m...
View ArticleTwo very different British novellas by David Lodge and Agnes Owens
I have read several David Lodge who was very popular in France. The Campus Trilogy, The British Museum Is Falling Down, How Far Can You Go? and Deaf Sentence. All pre-blog, which means that the last...
View ArticleTheatre : War Does Not Have a Woman’s Face, a stage version of The Unwomanly...
Last night at the theatre, we saw a stage version of Svetlana Alexievich’s book, The Unwomanly Face of War (1983). Here’s the blurb of the book: This book is a confession, a document and a record of...
View ArticleHungarian Lit month at Winston’s Dad – some book recommandations
Somehow I missed the announcement that Stu at Winstonsdad is hosting Hungarian Lit Month in February. We’re already the 7th of the month, there’s not much time to read and write about Hungarian lit...
View ArticleThird crime is the charm #18 : Québec, England, Japan, Tennessee and France
I know that this series of crime fiction billets usually deal with three books but I have a growing backlog of billets, so I’m doing a five in one this time. At Christmas I received a book by Louise...
View ArticleDiscourse on Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de La Boétie – highly recommended.
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boétie (1546 or 1548) Original French title : Discours de la Servitude volontaire. I have a project regarding 18th century literature this year and I...
View ArticleCold Mountain by Charles Frazier – two characters in the turbulences of the...
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (1997) French title: Retour à Cold Mountain. Translated by Marie Dumas. Séverine and I picked picked Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier for our first buddy read of the...
View ArticleThe Rise of the Green Hawk by Amid Lartane – political Noir in Algeria
The Rise of the Green Hawk by Amid Lartane (2007) Not available in English. Original French title: L’envol du faucon vert. According to Babelio, we don’t know much about Algerian writer Amid Lartane....
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