May Round Up

 

Another month gone - and thanks to the unseasonable heatwave we spent a lot of time outside. When not out and about in nature it was often a bit too hot for reading anything too deep or complex.

June's Read the World group met earlier this week and we visited India this time -  even the weather joined in with a mini monsoon storm in the middle of the meeting! As ever we all picked different books and authors but even so we found some common themes and had a great time talking about them and the books. Very few of the books this month were actually in translation which was interesting too. Our next meeting is on Bastille Day and so we're reading France for that!

In my own journey around the world, apart from Paraguay, the only new countries I visited were Burundi and Jordan but other locations included Japan, Korea (North & South), and Russia.

Looking back at the books I did read very few novels were stand outs but I did enjoy If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation by Daniel Hahn and Wild Pavements: Exploring Britain's Cities with an Urban Naturalist by Amanda Tuke. 

June should be a book filled month - the next round of one of my reading projects starts and I have a beach holiday to look forward to!

Micro Review 28 (2025)

 

Barbara Isn't Dying by Alina Bronsky, translated by Tim Mohr (Europa Editions)

I really must start writing down where I see books mentioned that I go on to request from the library - I'd certainly not have discovered this book without seeing it mentioned somewhere but I really can't remember where and so can't thank the person who first brought it to my attention.

Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, “comfortable” confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But when one morning she can’t get up from bed anymore, everything changes.

With biting humour and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and house-husband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter’s rough facade begins to crumble—and with it his old certainties about his life and family.

At the very beginning I really disliked Walter, a man so useless he can't even make a cup of instant coffee, and to be honest he remains a prickly, proud, and annoying character throughout the book. However this is one of the things that really makes this book - Walter's changes are incredibly subtle and he remains uncompromising in so many things. By the end however I was rooting for him completely and became as frustrated by the people around him as he was - no one seemed to meet him half way. And the final things we learn about him are just heart breaking.

In other hands this would have been just another book about a character with a probable autism diagnosis struggling to fit in to the world but ultimately making compromises or having a talent so that everyone suddenly loved him, but Bronsky keeps Walter whole and the book is all the better for that. 

I am struggling to articulate what captivated me so much about this book but I really did love it, but I'm very grateful that Mr Norfolkbookworm is far more capable around the house!

Microreview 27 (2025)

 

Jellyfish Have No Ears by Adele Rosenfeld, translated by Jeffery Zuckerman (McLehose Press)

This was an interesting read, and while I don't think that it will feature in my top 10 books of the year it will be hovering just outside...

The book is about a young woman who has had hearing problems for years but suddenly these have worsened and she is becoming profoundly deaf. She is told, however, that some of her hearing can be saved if she has a cochlear implant.

Louise has always felt adrift between communities: not deaf enough to be a part of Deaf culture, not hearing enough to be fully within the hearing world. Hearing, for Louise, is inseparable from reading other people's lips. Through sight, she perceives words and strings them together like pearls to reconstruct a conversation.

Then an audiology exam shows that most of her hearing has gone, and her doctor suggests a cochlear implant. With this irreversible intervention, Louise would gain a new, synthetic sense of hearing - but she would lose what remains of her natural hearing, which has shaped her unique relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows.

As she weighs the prospect of surgery, she must also contend with the chaotic reality of her life as she falls in love, suffers through her first job, and steadies herself with friends.

A masterclass in wordplay and language's possibilities and limitations, this fiercely original debut plunges readers into Louise's world as she grapples with loss, and considers what she might gain in the process.

I found the book to be an immersive read into the life of someone wrestling with the decision regarding undertaking treatment that will be life changing - and possibly not all in a positive way.

However the reason that I have been thinking about this book so much since finishing is that I realise it is in fact a double translation. 

As well as Zuckerman having to tackle the translation from French - including making all of the very clever wordplay work, the book has also had to try to translate the experience of being D/deaf in the real world to non hearing impaired readers. While this book is only the protagonist's experience of the latter I felt like I had a much better understanding of the struggles faced in day to day life in France and the alienation not being 'normal' causes.

It came as no surprise to read that both the author and translator are deaf - I think that this must make a difference from a hearing person writing a deaf character. 

Reading the World update

 

As three quarters of the year has now passed I am really impressed at how much more of my map I have scratched off since June- I appreciate that reading books from Russian authors and also a couple of Canadian book has really made a difference but when I look back through my reading journal for 2025 I can see that I've read books set in 68 countries.

Of these 68 the great majority are by authors from these areas and for the most part not by British authors using an exotic destination. There are also pleasingly few travel writing books bumping up the totals - and several of the ones I have read were already in translation so gave a non British-centric view to the journey.

Books from Japan still make up the majority of books in translation that I've read in 2025, but so far it is France that holds second place (with South Korea and Germany) in hot pursuit.

If I add in books from last year I can say that I have read books from 83 countries which isn't bad too bad at all really!

My joy in this project is also making me start to think how I can share my discoveries more widely and as I work for the library service and as 2026 has been designated a Year of Reading all I can say is watch this space...

Reading Map 1st July

Micro Review 23 (2025) / Women in Translation Month

 

The Lake by Bianca Bellova, translated by Alex Zucker. (Parthian Books)

I picked this book up for my reading the world project as it is by a Czech author and I hadn't crossed the Czech Republic off my map, that it also counted for ~WITMonth was a bonus!

I wasn't sure that the book was going to be for me from the synopsis but the whole point of my project is to read more widely (and occasionally out of my comfort zone): 

A dystopian page-turner about the coming of age of a young hero, which won the 2017 EU Prize for Literature.

A fishing village at the end of the world. A lake that is drying up and, ominously, pushing out its banks. The men have vodka, the women troubles, the children eczema to scratch at.

Born into this unforgiving environment, Nami, a young boy, embarks on a journey with nothing but a bundle of nerves, a coat that was once his grandfather's and the vague idea of searching for his mother, who disappeared from his life at a young age. To uncover the greatest mystery of his life, he must sail across and walk around the lake and finally dive to its bottom. 

Boy was this bleak! At no point could anyone catch a break in the story but all the way through I was kept hoping for the one glimmer of hope/happiness that would redeem the book so it was incredibly well written/translated.

It didn't help that at first I was reading the book as an allegory for the Cold War and expected at some point for the narrative to become more hopeful, so much of the book seemed to be an about the Soviet Union's treatment of the Aral Sea (which I'd just been reading about!) for example. It wasn't until I'd finished the book and then seen that it was a dystopian story it made more sense!

I'm not sure I recommend this book, but I can admire it and it was certainly different to everything else I've read either for my project or for Women In Translation month!

Reading the World update

 

My scratch off map is becoming far more colourful and my reading life is really expanding.

While I am reading a lot of books in translation or from authors living in a country I am also counting some travel writing in my project.

Some of these been accounts of journeys made in locations (Sovietistan by Erika Fatland) and some of the books have been from people who've settled in an area and are writing about their new lives (In Arabian Nights by Tahir Shah) and while I do want to read in translation where possible my bank balance isn't bottomless and I don't want to narrow my borders as I am trying to explore them!

Because my map does mark all of the US states, Canadian provinces, and Australian states I have expanded my challenge to include a book from each of these  - but I do wish that India and China has also been split up as they are such diverse countries it feels wrong to just read one book from these places and cross off the whole country!

This mix of fiction/translation/non fiction is working well for me so far and it has to be said that as this is the way Daunt Books organise their travel sections I feel I am in good company with this approach.

Some of the top reads from the past 6 months have been:

• Sovietistan: A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan by Erika Flatland. Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar and Tanzania) 
• Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis (Iraq)
• My Pen is the Wing of a Bird (Afghanistan) Translated from various languages by a variety of people.
• The Wager and the Bear by John Ironmonger (Greenland)
• Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts (California, Nevada, Arizona & Utah)
• That Librarian - Louisiana 
• Between Two Rivers - Moudhy Al-Rashid (Mesopotamia)

Not all my reading has been focussed on this project and my top six books so far this year are:

• Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid
• Mythica by Emily Hauser
• Florrie by Anna Trench
• When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
• The Eights by Joanna Miller
• The Wager and the Bear by John Ironside

Picking these books was great fun - I scanned down my book journal and picked the ones that have stayed with me the most for whatever reason and/or are the ones I've recommended to other people the most!

Oops

 

Well we all knew that the regular posts and reviews from the start of the year wouldn't last but I didn't mean to let nearly 2 months go past without posting!

I guess that the silence does sort of say it all in some ways - it has been a while since I read a book that I have wanted to tell everyone about instantly...

I've been reading lots still, and thanks to a couple of trips to the wonderful travel departments at Daunts Bookshops my reading the world project is really progressing - more updates about that at the end of the month where I'll take stock of where I am after half of 2025.

The Women's Prize for Fiction and Non Fiction winners are announced later this week, and while the fiction shortlist didn't inspire me to go on and read everything I did read the whole of the Non Fiction shortlist. 

I can honestly say that I wouldn't be upset if any of them won as I really enjoyed them all - even Neneh Cherry's autobiography was a good read. (Her song Seven Seconds was *everywhere* when I was doing my A Levels as and a result I've never been a fan but the book has made me go back and listen to some of her other stuff.)

Here's hoping that some excellent books cross my path soon - it can't be long until the Waterstone's Debut Prize list is announced and that sent some real gems my way...