Favourite author micro review

 

The Wine-Dark Sea by Victoria Hislop (Headline)

There are some authors whose books you just know you're going to read regardless and Hislop has been one of these for me since The Island came out around 20 years ago and I always get very excited when I see a new one is due.

This one is set just post World War Two when Greece was tearing itself apart in a 'civil' war between left and right and concentrates on the effects this had on one family from the rural north of the country.

Many, many years ago my dad recommended the book Eleni by Nicholas Gage and so I was aware of some of the story covered here but by no means all of it. Eleni is a horrifying read because it is true and can't have a happy ending, but I found The Wine-Dark Sea to be just as dark and as novel did need the slightly (!) contrived coincidences and endings just to be rounded. It is a story of hope, survival, and family which swept me away.

I am lucky in that I get to go to Greece often and while I know about the Greece from antiquity, and the Greece from WW2,  am not so familiar with Greece from 1945-1990 and just how successfully the country has overcome its past divisions. I hope that it is a true story of reconciliation and that the trauma hasn't just been buried to explode again in the future.

Many thanks to Headline/NetGalley for early access to this book

Women in Translation Month 2026

 

August has become Women in Translation month in the book world and it does always come as a good reminder to me to make sure that I am reading books by men and women, as well as ones that are translated by men and women.

I read 10 books (or novellas) in translation in August, and 8 of these were by women which was pleasing to see. I did also read a novel written by someone who is also a translator.

The books I read were:

• The Little I Knew (Foundry Editions) by Chiara Valerio, tr. Ailsa Wood
• Co-Wives, Co-Widows (Dedalus Books) by Adrienne Yabouza, tr. Rachael McGill.
• The Summer Book (Sort Of Books) by Tove Jansson, tr. Thomas Teal
• I Don't Care (Penguin) by Agota Kristof, tr. Chis Andrews
• The Lady Bandit (Penguin) by Emilia Pardo Bazan, tr. Robert M. Fedorchek
• Now Let's Dance (Orion) by Karine Lambert, tr. Anthea Bell
• Repatriation (Foundry Editions) by Eva Guerra, tr. Clodagh Kinsella
• Like Water for Chocolate (Penguin) by Laura Esquivel, tr. Carol and Thomas Christensen

They were all good in very different ways but I think the one that surprised me the most was Like Water for Chocolate as in the past I've not really got on with magical realism as a genre but this one just captivated me.

Overall this year so far I've read 73 books in translation and even without picking female authors consciously (apart from in August) 40 of them have been by women which pleases me.

August Round Up

 

Another month gone, and as I type this the weather also seems to have left summer behind and turned more autumnal, although more heatwaves or hot blips are being forecast. It has been an incredible summer however and I hope that there isn't the extreme cold to counter balance the extreme heat, although I don't mind the cooler temps it is just the ice I loathe!

August was another good month for me - the highlight being our extreme day trip to Valladolid in Spain to see the total eclipse. This was our fifth eclipse, making us true umbraphiles I think, and it was certainly special as it came shortly before sunset giving many new colours and experiences. Full photos of the experience can be found on my Flickr page and as Valladolid was the birth place of Cervantes I think that a forthcoming reading project should be for me to read Don Quixote.

Reading wise I did spend a lot of time reading for the excellent Women In Translation month and will round up my full thoughts in a separate post soon. I missed the Reading Around the World book group as I was eclipse chasing but by all accounts they all enjoyed visiting Scotland and at our September meeting we'll be visiting Italy.

As for me I visited 16 countries (if you include the UK and USA) by book and 7 were new for my map - Central African Republic, Mauretania, Bahrain, Gabon, DRC, Moldova, and Thailand. The books set in the USA were mainly ones for a reading project and so didn't add any new states to my list sadly.

Top reads of the month definitely Nicola Chester's Ghosts of the Farm, which I talked about earlier and The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine (tr. Sam Taylor). Honourable mention to the Booker longlisted May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry which I found fun and also recognised myself in -  as when I start researching something I'm interested in I can easily fall down rabbit holes...

Thoughts on more of the translations soon!