When I think about Émile Zola, my mind is filled with characters whose lives are blighted by poverty, vice and alcoholism. Most of the Zola novels I’ve read so far are all about the bleakness of life in late nineteenth century France, its people weighed down by capitalism, industrialisation and political intrigue. The Dream (Le […]
The Classics Club Spin delivered number …. … thus giving me the chance to read La Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette) by Honoré De Balzac. Published in 1847 which is roughly when the novel is set, Cousin Bette is about a middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. Bette resents her cousin Adeline Hulot […]
it’s time for another round of the classic club spin and this time I’m hoping to get something from Wales or Ireland
Reading Wales Month will be back for its ninth year in March, giving readers around the world a chance to celebrate literature from this Celtic nation. If you’ve ever wondered if there is more to Welsh writing than Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl, then now is your chance to find out. The answer, of course, […]
The Silence in Between was inspired by a true story of a mother separated from her baby when the border between West and East Berlin was closed in 1961. In Josie Ferguson’s version, the separation of mother and child is used as a jumping off point for a novel about the legacy of war and […]