Just before the lockdown, back at the end of February, we managed with my mum to go for a week in Tenerife. Since then we haven't seen each other and neither of us could travel anywhere. But it was meeting and traveling that usually constituted the things we looked forward to. So in the lockdown, …
Continue reading Detroit: An American Autopsy – Charlie LeDuff
I got this book from my mum, as an Easter gift. Like everyone else we had Zoom Easter, given that she is in Poland and I'm in the UK. Normally I'd travel back once a month, but the current situation has put a stop to it, so my mum is channeling her feelings into sending …
Continue reading Smak Kwiatów Pomarańczy – Tessa Capponi-Borawska, Agnieszka Drotkiewicz
[...] ageing is nothing to be ashamed of especially when the entire human race is in it together although sometimes it seems that she alone among her friends wants to celebrate getting older because it's such a privilege not to die prematurely (on living in a squat): the Marxists demanded they set up a Central …
Continue reading Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo – Quotes
One of the two winners of the Man Booker Prize for 2019. I bought all the shortlisted books, so I will slowly make my way through them. I tend to be a bit apprehensive about the Man Booker Prize nominees. I always think they will be extremely difficult to read, even though I enjoyed The …
Another book that I got as a gift. The title translates along the lines of The Twelfth. Do Not Think You Can Escape. It is a reportage but mixed with other genres as well. The main topic is the Law of Jante. A set of rules stated in Aksel Sandemose's book A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. Sandemose …
Continue reading Dwunaste. Nie Myśl, że Uciekniesz – Filip Springer
It's one of the books I ordered from The Book People before the coronavirus madness started for real. They took their time fulfilling my order, so long that my company decided we should work from home before the books arrived. The bulk of my order was the discounted Man Booker Shortlist 2019, but I added some …
Continue reading Pet Subjects: Animal Tales from the Telegraph’s Resident Vet – Peter Wedderburn
A literal translation of the title would be something like this: Shadow Chasing Shadow. It is a story of what you may call a lyrical investigation. Mikołajewski throughout his life was fascinated by Zuzanna Ginczanka. Ginczanka was a Polish-Jewish poet, born in 1917, she was executed during the Second World War, at the age of …
Continue reading Cień w Cień. Za Cieniem Zuzanny Ginczanki – Jarosław Mikołajewski
Wow! We're six months into the year! Halfway...and four months at home. I hope you all are doing well and staying safe. Life certainly has changed in the last months, moods vary, some days are ok, others not so much. Travelling feels like a distant dream, but I don't give up and keep hoping to …
Another book I brought from my trip to Dubai in July 2019. It seems so far away now, that the whole world has locked down and after three months is only hesitantly relaxing the measures. Other books I bought there were more focused on Arabic literature. But somehow Murmur caught my eye. It is based on the …
Our final moments in this life aren't generally an appropriate time for clear-eyed reflection; indeed, they always find us at our most sentimental. A silent funeral is a funeral stripped of all its awe, Bolbol thought. Rites and rituals meant nothing now. For the first time, everyone was truly equal in death. [...]it allowed him …
Continue reading Death is Hard Work – Khaled Khalifa – Quotes
