My Book Reviews

A very well written novel about a young woman who travels to a little village in Greece, trying to find her estranged husband. In fact she and him are having plans to have a divorce and already live separate lives, unknown to most people especially to his parents. This leaves a choice: telling about the separation or not. She discovers things about the man she did not know about, most of these stay unspoken of. All this gives her a uncomfortable feeling and lots of uncertainties. The central theme of the novel is "mixed emotions". We often will or can say that we have mixed emotions, often caused by our surroundings and the people in it. We all know people who will often ask you "What are you thinking of", expressing their uncertainty. And we all look at people in situations and think of different options of their feelings and intentions. A very entertaining book that gives enough food for thoughts. Five stars very deserved.

  The book is a frame narrative, rather cleverly constructed. The story is told by Ben Markovits, but is not necessarily a sort of autobiography. To me it looks like fiction. He tells the story of the writer Peter Sullivan who wrote a few books about Lord Byron. Ben Markovits tries to find more information about him while working on the last book (of 3). These books are published posthumously because Sullivan died. Markovits also tries to find information about the things Sullivan writes about Lord Byron. There is plenty of stuff to be found, but it is spread all over England and the USA, so he needs to travel a bit too. Also to visit places where Sullivan lived and worked. There seems to be a wanting to find similarities between Sullivan and Lord Byron and even himself. I did not know a lot about Lord Byron. He is mentioned in lessons in English literature in school, but it never is very explicit. So I accept what is stated in this book. The man was a romantic writer and philander...

  A sad but very good novel. It is the story about a Hindu family consisting of father, mother and two sons, who are twins, living on the island of Trinidad. The story is being told by the point of view of the father, one of the sons and a Roman Catholic priest. It shows a bit of common life on the island, family connections, expectations and disappointments. Very awful disappointments... 5 stars very much deserved!

An amazing selection of short stories situated in the Ukrain during the period just before the fall of the USSR and right after that. It shows the absurdity of bureaucracy on the highest level and the lack of any regulations after the fall of the USSR. I loved every one of the stories; they are all connected and give a great view of life in this period of time. Highly recommended by me. 5 stars well deserved.

An intriguing novel. I think a lot of people at least once had the experience of being accepted in a group of people because of a mistaken identity. There is the choice of clearing things up or to go along with the flow and not feeling great because of the gnawing feeling of being an imposter. Sometimes it feels like there is no choice. This novel describes that very well, just as it tells you how most people - when you get to know them better - are quite different from what they seem to be. Then it can rise the question: Who really is the imposter in this group? I loved reading this book and gave it 5 very deserved stars.

It's not an easy read. It's not long, but it took me a lot longer to finish this book than I normally do. It is quite poetic, consisting of snippets of text and bits that are a bit longer. It looks like there are quite a lot of different stories, but they do fit together. Like a very difficult jigsaw puzzle. Some bits are really gripping. At least I felt it like that. I loved the quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, a truly great but somehow forgotten writer. There was an explanation about the font that was used. I did like it, it made the reading a bit easier, I think. I gave it 4 stars.