Pechorin

LATEST ARTICLES ( 230 )

• Something About the Darkness of the Streets Has a Meaning

  

  Voyage in the Dark, by Jean Rhys This is England, and I’m in a nice clean English room with all the dirt swept under the bed. Rhys is the poet of hypocrisy and... Read more

  Posted on 13 September 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Dead Man Had Been Killed by a Shot from a Revolver. So What Was the Prussic...

  

  The Murdered Banker, by Augusto De Angelis and translated by Jill Foulston Piazza San Fedele was a bituminous lake of fog penetrated only by the rosy haloes of... Read more

  Posted on 12 September 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “There’s a Crippled Gentleman at the Door. And He Wants to See You!”

  

  Corrigan, by Caroline Blackwood Corrigan is a blackly comic novel about an encounter between a bereaved old woman and a persuasive but somewhat... Read more

  Posted on 08 September 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “I’m a Scientist, Not a Not a Bloody Politician.”

  

  The Small Back Room, by Nigel Balchin Nigel Balchin is one of a great many authors who were once highly popular and are now largely forgotten. Read more

  Posted on 02 September 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Talk and Cock is All I Got

  

  The Transmigration of Bodies, by Yuri Herrera and translated by Lisa Dilllman Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World remains the leading contender... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Being a Man Was Too Difficult.

  

  She Who Was No More, by Boileau-Narcejac and translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury A year or so back I saw Clouzot’s superb Les Diaboliques, a film which beats... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• This is My City, Look at It Now!

  

  City of Spades by Colin MacInnes Colin MacInnes is one of those classic London writers now slipping slightly from view. I tend to think of him in the same menta... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• He Was a Moral Agent—that Was Settled in His Mind.

  

  The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, by Joseph Conrad Back in April I reviewed Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which I liked but didn’t love and which I found rather... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Thus Did I Betray My Earthborn Heritage and Perform a Service for Our Conquerors...

  

  Nightwings, by Robert Silverberg Nightwings was always my favourite of Silverberg novels, which given how much I loved his work as a teenager is no small thing. Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• ‘No, No!’ The Canon’s Voice Was Sharp with Impatience. ‘This is a Case for the...

  

  To the Devil – a Daughter, by Dennis Wheatley Back in 2014 I revisited an author I’d rather liked as a teenager: Dennis Wheatley. Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• It Was How the Place Made You Feel, Like It Was Alive and Biding Its Time...

  

  Death is a Welcome Guest, by Louise Welsh Death is a Welcome Guest is the second in Louise Welsh’s Plague Times trilogy. It’s not so much a sequel to her first... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “Somehow, the Idea of the Devil in a Motor Boat Sounds Too Utterly Fantastic,”...

  

  The Secret of High Eldersham, by Miles Burton After finishing my #TBR10 (which I’ll post separately about) I found myself intensely busy at work and in need of... Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• She Left Her Hesitations Behind with Her Home-made Woolens.

  

  Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson Back in 1938 when Winifred Watson first submitted Miss Pettigrew to her publisher they didn’t want to accept... Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Big Thing in Europe These Days Was Countries, and There Were More and More o...

  

  Europe in Autumn, by Dave Hutchinson A while back I read a short story by Dave Hutchinson featuring a knight who falls lasciviously in love with his own... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• We All Go Down in Battle, but We All Come Home.’

  

  Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes Nightwood comes praised by many of my own personal literary heroes. TS Eliot was a fan. So too Jeanette Winterson. Even William... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• “There Needs to Be Fucking in African Literature Too!”

  

  Tram 83, by Fiston Mwanza Mujila and translated by Roland Glasser There’s a tendency in the UK to expect a certain kind of book from Africa. Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• At the Beginning, There Had Been Talk of Using Some of Her Money to Start a...

  

  Never Mind, by Edward St Aubyn Never Mind is the first of Edward St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels. It’s superbly well written; I’ll be... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Yes, I Was a Happy Porcupine Back Then,

  

  Memoirs of a Porcupine, by Alain Mabanckou and translated by Helen Stevenson One of the great joys of trying new authors is when you find one that has long... Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• He Should Have Been a Great Philosopher, Said Mrs. Ramsay, as They Went Down...

  

  To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf My Vintage Classics edition of To the Lighthouse comes in at 224 pages, including the introduction by Helen Dunmore. It... Read more

  Posted on 13 June 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Later, as He Sat on His Balcony Eating the Dog,

  

  High-Rise, by J.G. Ballard I grew up in Ballardia, more specifically on the Lancaster West Estate (which looks a hell of a lot nicer now than it did back then). Read more

  Posted on 02 June 2016 BOOKS, CULTURE