My first Janssonian contribution to the Tove Trove Library is the fifth book in the Moomin series, first published in 1954.
Translated Literature
TOVE TROVE: Introduction & Books #ToveTrove
My latest literary project entails reading books written by or about Tove Jansson – creator of the Moomins.
BOOK REVIEW: A Nail, A Rose
Brought back into print by Pushkin Press, Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s 1944 short story collection highlights the lives of conflicted female characters in beautiful prose.
BOOK REVIEW: Intimate Ties: Two Novellas
First published in 1911, Intimate Ties is Robert Musil’s second book, consisting of two novellas, ‘The Culmination of Love’ and ‘The Temptation of Silent Veronica.’
BOOK REVIEW: The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories
A collection of Franz Kafka’s short stories showcasing his dark imagination and wry humour.
BOOK REVIEW: Crimson
Crimson is a tale of love, lust, despondency and ‘queer life’ in modern Greenland.
BOOK REVIEW: The Cake Tree in the Ruins
A necessarily brief review (I’m posting this from a sandy beach in Cyprus) of a dark but inventive short story collection set on 15th August 1945 – the day Japan surrendered and the Second World War formerly ended.
BOOK REVIEW: Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine
A glimpse into a complex situation through the eyes of a naive young woman who discovers a country, makes friends, falls in love and is confronted with the plight of the Palestinians.
BOOK REVIEW: An Untouched House
A short but shocking Dutch war classic by a writer who has drawn comparisons to Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut.
BOOK REVIEW: The Beekeeper of Sinjar
Dunya Mikhail tells the harrowing but often moving stories of women who have managed to escape the clutches of ISIS.
THOUGHTS ON: The Little Prince
A moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language.
THOUGHTS ON: Around the World in Eighty Days
One ill-fated evening at the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the world in 80 days – and he is determined not to lose!
‘A Pocket Guide: The Literature of Wales’ by Dafydd Johnston
In this, the third of my occasional features about Wales to be posted in the run-up to Dewithon 2019, we look at an informative little book about Welsh literature.
BOOK REVIEW: In Search of Lost Books: The Forgotten Stories of Eight Mythical Volumes
The gripping and elegiac stories of eight lost books, and the mysterious circumstances behind their disappearances.
BOOK REVIEW: The End of Loneliness
Told through the ruptured lives of three siblings, The End of Loneliness is a heartfelt, enriching novel about loss and loneliness, family and love.
BOOK REVIEW: Estoril: A War Novel
Estoril is a comedy-cum-spy story set in a luxurious hotel during the height of the Second World War.
THOUGHTS ON: Ru
At 162 pages, Ru is a short but intense potpourri of vignettes – powerful, superbly realized and well worth reading.
BOOK REVIEW: A Maigret Christmas
A Maigret Christmas is the title story from a newly translated book of short stories in which the burly detective receives an unexpected visit from two ladies on Christmas morning.
BOOK REVIEW: Love
Love is an intelligent, compassionate, if melancholy tale, which demonstrates what can happen if we become too internalised and fail to be mindful of those we love most.
THOUGHTS ON: The Vegetarian
The Vegetarian is concerned with obsession, desire, fear, disintegration of family and madness.