With summer pretty sure that it’s here, Wimbledon done and dusted, school terms over and festival season in full swing, we’re offering you a big selection of Riveting Reviews this month – some of the latest European books in translation, and titles we recommend for beach, park, cafe and sofa-based reading (so basically anywhere).
Our feature review this month comes from our very own Riveter-in-Chief, Rosie Goldsmith. Last month Rosie interviewed Turkish writer Elf Shafak at the V&A, as part of her Fashion and Fiction strand of author events – and on the same day she wrote her effusive review of Shafak’s latest novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.
This month we also see the return of two of our favourite reviewers: Valeria Vescina reviews The Girl at the Door by Italian novelist Veronica Raimo, a book with great contemporary relevance; and Ewa Sherman takes on A Modern Family, Norwegian Helga Flatland’s prize-winning debut.
The second part of Christelle Dabos’s Mirror Visitor Quartet was published this spring, and is enthusiastically reviewed here by Lizzy Siddal, while Barry Forshaw gives us his usual trio of the best in European crime fiction, and Anna Blasiak raves about a new collection of Latvian poetry.
We also have reviews of Polish, Bosnian, Russian-French and Portuguese novels, by the usual suspects – Ursula Phillips, Lucy Popescu, Silvia Sovic and myself – plus a tremendous piece by Mika Provata-Carlone about Antonio Iturbe’s The Librarian of Auschwitz via our relationship with Bookanista.
Read this fine selection of reviews, and if you enjoy them, as I’m sure you will, please do share them on social media and with your friends, colleagues and acquaintances – helping us in our mission to attract to European literature the praise and attention it deserves.
We’re taking a break from our Riveting Reviews in August, so enjoy the summer and we’ll be back in September with more.
By West Camel
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