The Good Books 2021

Here are the books that I enjoyed most in 2021. You can read about those I liked best in 2020 here. Biography/memoir/autobiography/history The Element of Lavishness, Letters between Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell was a Christmas present from 2020 that got shunted into the waiting room while I read her letters to and from … Continue reading The Good Books 2021 →

2020: The good books

This is a list of the books I read in 2020 that I still remember with enthusiasm and about which I have something to say. As if we were browsing together in a bookshop, and I'm the irritating one who keeps breaking your concentration to say 'You must read this, it's so good ... Oh … Continue reading 2020: The good books →

The 2017 Vondel Prize

The Vondel Translation Prize - a bi-annual prize established by the Society of Authors - has been awarded to the American translator David McKay, the translator of Stefan Hertmans' novel Oorlog en Turpentijn / War and Turpentine. It's set during before, during and after the First World War, in Flanders and is based on the … Continue reading The 2017 Vondel Prize →

Now posting on Vulpes Libris: the drinking in Hemingway

Over on Vulpes Libris we're having a Drinking Week. My contribution is a little something on how Ernest Hemingway wrote about alcohol. The most powerful descriptions of drinking in the alcoholic sense that I can remember are in Alan Warner's Morvern Callar, which turned my sensibilities so much I couldn't finish the novel. I know … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: the drinking in Hemingway →