Chameleon, Bear, Craws and wilderness – Kurkov, Krivak and McCafferty.
I bought The Good Angel of Death by Andrey Kurkov because its French title is Le caméléon and the blurb reminded me of Romain Gary. When Nikolai moves into his new apartment in Kiev, the previous...
View ArticleThe Devil Himself by Peter Farris – Deep South noir
The Devil Himself by Peter Farris (2017) French title: Le diable en personne. Translated by Anatole Pons-Reumaux. In my copy of the book, the original title is Ghost in the Field. I don’t know which...
View ArticleQuais du Polar 2024 : Day one!
As mentioned in my previous billet, the crime fiction festival Quais du Polar was all over the city of Lyon from April 5th to April 7th. It was an exceptional edition for the festival 20th anniversary....
View ArticleQuais du Polar 2024 : Day two!
Hello everyone, here’s my billet about Day Two à Quais du Polar. First of all, look at my new notebook for the panels, talks, interviews and whatnots! Early morning I attended a panel entitled Between...
View ArticleQuais du Polar 2024 : Day three!
Hello everyone, this is Day 3 of the Quais du Polar. We got up early because we had tickets for the 9:15am Literary Cruise with Peter May. It’s like the Bateaux Mouche in Paris, but in Lyon on the...
View ArticleThe Bachelor of Arts by R.K. Narayan – The 1937 Club
The Bachelor of Arts by R.K. Narayan. (1937) French title: Le licencié es lettres. I’m happy to participate to the #1937Club hosted by Karen and Simon, especially since I get to share about The...
View ArticleAll the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby – more Deep South noir and a masterpiece.
All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby (2023) French title: Le sang des innocents. Blood and tears. Violence and mayhem. Love and hate. These were the rocks upon which the South was built. They were the...
View ArticleMetz Book Festival & books about books
Serendipity brought me to Metz the very weekend the town hosted its book festival, Le livre à Metz. Littérature et Journalisme. I didn’t have time to attend any panel or conference but I had time to...
View ArticleJob’s Coffin by Lance Weller – two people thrown into the horrors of slavery...
Job’s Coffin by Lance Weller (2021) French title: Le cercueil de Job. Translated by François Happe. Lance Weller is an American writer born in 1965 in Washington State. He wrote three books of...
View ArticleClean Slate #3 : Catching up with billets – ups and downs
It’s time again to clear the To Be Written pile and give you an overview of books I’ve read or abandoned and that I don’t have either the inclination or the time to write a proper billet about. I know...
View ArticleA Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane – exploring grey areas
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane. (1994) French title: Un dernier verre avant la guerre. There is a war going on. It’s happening in playgrounds, not health clubs. It’s fought on cement, not...
View ArticleSugar overload – Fluke, Kermel and Alcott
I guess that I needed a bit of sugar to mitigate the sour and violent stories in books by Lehane, Cosby and Weller. I came across Joanne Fluke’s books through my Kube subscription when I received a...
View ArticleDays Come and Go by Hemley Boum – a trip to Cameroon
Days Come and Go by Hemley Boum (2019) Original French title: Les jours viennent et passent. For the month of April, our Book Club’s read was Days Come and Go by the Cameroonian writer Hemley Boum....
View Article20 Books of Summer : the fun starts on June 1st
It’s hard to believe that 20 Books of Summer is already there because Spring seems like a fake news this year with all the rain we had. And yet, it’s almost June and Cathy is hosting this event again....
View ArticleFor a Little While by Rick Bass – superb writing
Night and day; day and night. There is a perfect balance, a drawn and poised moment’s tension to everything. Is it peculiarly human, and perhaps wrong, to try to hang back—to try to shore up, pause,...
View ArticleImpossible by Erri De Luca – rush for it
Impossible by Erri De Luca (2019) French title: Impossible. Translated by Danièle Valin. Je lui ai parlé du sentiment de la fraternité. Elle est avec la liberté et l’égalité dans la devise de la...
View ArticleBoundary by Andrée A. Michaud – Literary crime fiction and coming-of-age novel.
Boundary by Andrée A. Michaud (2014) French title (Québec): Bondrée. The English translation by Donald Winkler was published as Boundary but there’s also an ebook version is entitled The Last Summer....
View Article1947, 1979 and 2017: three very different westerns
Somehow, I ended up reading three westerns almost in a row, one I abandoned, one I loved and one I liked. I’ve wanted to read The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie even since I read Indian Creek Chronicles by...
View ArticleClean Slate #4 : catching up with billet. Theatre, fiction, fan fiction and...
I love going to the theatre and I hope to see A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry on stage one day. It’s a brilliant play written in 1959, set Chicago Southside “sometime between WWII and the...
View ArticleParis in July –“I love Paris every moment of the year.”
Emma from Words and Peace hosts Paris in July. #ParisInJuly2024. It’s the umpteenth edition of this event where people blog about anything French. We’re July 14th, aka Bastille Day and twelve days...
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