September 2015

Cassandra by Christa Wolf

Christa Wolf (née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929, Landsberg an der Warthe – 1 December 2011, Berlin, http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/christa-wolf/ ) was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to emerge from the former East Germany. In Cassandra (1983) the author retells the story of the fall of Troy, but from the point of

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The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952, http://www.amytanauthor.com/) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese-American experience. Her best-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, this book was adapted into a commercially successful film directed by Wayne Wang. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107282/?ref_=nv_sr_1) The brief outline of The

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Make Me

Fans of Lee Child (http://www.leechild.com/) and his detective Jack Reacher will be delighted that the author has delivered again in 2015. Here is a summary of the detective’s 20th adventure to tempt you away from doing anything useful. Jack Reacher wants to know how a town could come to be called ‘Mother’s Rest’. But no one will tell him.

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Scotland

Alistair Moffat was born and bred in the Scottish Borders. A former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television, he now runs the Borders Book Festival. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed books and is a former Rector of St. Andrews University. In this new single volume

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Brief Candle in the Dark by Richard Dawkins

In Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28) the eponymous anti-hero is informed of the death of his wife. Shakespeare then gives him one of the classic soliloquiys in all literature. It is a despairing reflection on the brevity and futility of human life. ‘She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such

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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami ) is a contemporary Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (being three books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher) is an

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The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

Alan James Hollinghurst, FRSL, (born 26 May 1954, http://literature.britishcouncil.org/alan-hollinghurst and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hollinghurst) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2004 Booker Prize for this novel, The Line of Beauty. The summary is

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The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

If your preference is for the controversial, try reading The Elementary Particles (2000) by Michel Houellebecq (http://www.houellebecq.info/english.php and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Houellebecq). This edition was a translation from the French by Frank Wynne. It has otherwise been translated as ‘Atomised’. The summary is simple enough. Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love

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