Pechorin

LATEST ARTICLES ( 230 )

• The Bridge Looked Good Again.

  

  Cassandra at the Wedding, by Dorothy Baker Cassandra and her identical twin sister, Judith, have been inseparable all their lives. Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Fields of Mud Crushed Under the Weight of of the Impending Dark

  

  The A26, by Pascal Garnier and translated by Melanie Florence I’ve long wanted to read Pascal Garnier. He’s been well reviewed on the blogosphere, I love noir... Read more

  Posted on 13 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “The Log Has Gone Away.”

  

  The Inheritors, by William Golding The Inheritors is a hard book to describe, and in particular it’s hard to describe without making it sound forbidding or... Read more

  Posted on 10 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Sound of a Motorhorn Separated Us Like Thieves.

  

  Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan and translated by Irene Ash It’s nearly a month now since I read Bonjour Tristesse, but the memory of it still cuts throug... Read more

  Posted on 08 April 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• It is a Small Town and It Will Guard You.

  

  Nora Webster, by Colm Tóibín Back in 2011 I loved Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn. He managed the remarkable feat of writing an engaging novel about a rather passive... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Everything is Harder Once You Reach Man’s Estate

  

  Zone, by Mathias Enard and translated by Charlotte Mandell Zone is famously, and misleadingly, a novel in the form of a single 517 page sentence. Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• I Am Not a Chauvinist. I Am a Marseillais.

  

  This is a double review of two books from my longer term backlog, both read last year while travelling on trains between Montpelier and Marseilles. Read more

  Posted on 09 March 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• I Was Meant to Be Doing All the Things I Used to Talk About and I Was Doing...

  

  Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, by Alice Furse It takes a particular talent to depict boredom without being boring; to show stasis without losing the reader... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Moving to the City is the First Step to Getting Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

  

  How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, by Mohsin Hamid Mohsin Hamid came to international attention with his second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Read more

  Posted on 02 March 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• the Beauty of Young Men

  

  Jacob’s Room, by Virginia Woolf The thing about Jacob’s Room, before discussing its structure or characters or story or any of that, is that it has some of the... Read more

  Posted on 16 February 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• ‘I Must Not Say: “Would You Like a Hand Relief?”’

  

  The Holy Machine, by Chris Beckett Chris Beckett’s latest novel, Dark Eden, won the 2013 Arthur C Clarke award, generally a good guide to what’s interesting in... Read more

  Posted on 31 January 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Looking Back on #readwomen2014 and My Favourite Reads of the Year

  

  I didn’t read a lot of books in 2014, fewer than ever I suspect, but I did read some damn good ones and a fair few chunksters so the year certainly wasn’t all... Read more

  Posted on 28 January 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Television’s Caffeinated Universe Kept Unfolding

  

  Nod, by Adrian Barnes As I write this I have a fairly grim cold and haven’t slept properly in days. The result is I feel slightly distanced from the world, as i... Read more

  Posted on 20 January 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Who in This World Knows Anything of Any Other Heart – Or of His Own?

  

  The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford Where to start with a book this good? This is the first book I finished in 2015, and I’ll be amazed if it isn’t on my 2015... Read more

  Posted on 09 January 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• ‘Nicely Punctuated. … Interesting Mixture of Nouns and Adjectives.’

  

  The Yips, by Nicola Barker I probably wouldn’t have read this but for the #readwomen2014 campaign. I was aware of Barker, but somehow had never been pushed... Read more

  Posted on 03 January 2015 BOOKS, CULTURE

• It Was as If the Ancient Patterns Had No Meaning Here

  

  The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton When I first started skiing it was in a resort called Livigno. I did ski school there each year, and to assess your level... Read more

  Posted on 15 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• She Drove to the Beach, but There Was Oil Scum on the Sand and a Red Tide in...

  

  Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion When I was preparing to write this piece, I discovered that Play it as it Lays is in Time Magazine’s list of top 100 English... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Memory Will Cut You off at the Knees If You Let It

  

  Others of my Kind, by James Sallis I loved Drive. It’s a great book, well written and atmospheric. When recently I felt like taking another swim in Sallis’s... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• the Wild Heart of Life

  

  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce ONCE upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this mooco... Read more

  Posted on 25 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• There is Such a Thing as Letting One’s Æsthetic Sense Override One’s Moral Sense

  

  Improper Stories, by Saki Saki (real name HH Munro) was an Edwardian writer famed for his short stories – icy little satires that skewered hypocrisy and social... Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE