Book Around the Corner

I’m a little late for my yearly Book Club list but here are the books we have chosen for our 2019 – 2020 reading adventures. I’ll join excerpts from the Goodreads blurb from, it’s up to you to read it or skip it.

August (Yeah, that’s how late I am): The Good Lord Bird by James McBride. (USA, 2013)

Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town—with Brown, who believes he’s a girl.

Over the ensuing months, Henry—whom Brown nicknames Little Onion—conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—one of the great catalysts for the Civil War.

I’ve read it already, upcoming billet. Wonderful spoken style (It must have been a hell to translate but since it’s published by Gallmeister, French readers don’t need to worry about it)

September: L’homme de Londres by Georges Simenon (Belgium, 1933)

I don’t think this one is available in English, let me know if I’m wrong. Here’s the story:

A night, in Dieppe, Normandy, Teddy Baster is knocked out by Pitt Brown and drowns in the harbor, holding a suitcase. A local, Louis Maloin, sees everything and goes after the suitcase. It’s full of a fortune stolen to Pitt Brown’s boss, Harold Mitchel. Now I bet that Louis Maloin’s life is going to take a dangerous path.

L’homme de Londres, has been made into a film in 1943 by Henri Decoin, in 1946 as Temptation Harbour by Lance Comfort and in 2017 as A londoni férfi by the Hungarian director Béla Tarr. Maybe you’ve seen the film.

October: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (USA, 1987)

Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Published in France by Gallmeister, it can’t be bad.

November: Esclaves by Kangni Alem (Togo, 2009)

I don’t think that this one is available in English either. It’s historical fiction about the slave trade Africa done by the Portuguese who sent slaves to Brazil. It’s the story of a young man who helps the King of Dahomey to fight against the slave trade and is deported to Brazil.

I have never read a book about how the slave trade was done in Africa. The book also includes a part on a Brazilian plantation. It should be interesting.

December : Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (India, 1991)

It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his father’s ambitions for him. He is the one reasonable voice amidst the ongoing dramas of his neighbours. One day, he receives a letter from an old friend, asking him to help in what at first seems like a heroic mission. But he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous network of deception. Compassionate, and rich in details of character and place, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change.

This one is set at a turning point of India’s history too. I’ve read a little bit about the split between India and Pakistan in Half Life by Roopa Farooki. I’m looking forward to reading Such a Long Journey.

January: Something Will Happen, You’ll See by Christos Ikonomou (Greece, 2010)

Ikonomou’s stories convey the plight of those worst affected by the Greek economic crisis– laid-off workers, hungry children. In the urban sprawl between Athens and Piraeus, the narratives roam restlessly through the impoverished working-class quarters located off the tourist routes. Everyone is dreaming of escape: to the mountains, to an island or a palatial estate, into a Hans Christian Andersen story world. What are they fleeing? The old woes– gossip, watchful neighbors, the oppression and indifference of the rich– now made infinitely worse. In Ikonomou’s concrete streets, the rain is always looming, the politicians’ slogans are ignored, and the police remain a violent, threatening presence offstage. Yet even at the edge of destitution, his men and women act for themselves, trying to preserve what little solidarity remains in a deeply atomized society, and in one way or another finding their own voice. There is faith here, deep faith– though little or none in those who habitually ask for it.

I’ve read two books by Petros Markaris, crime fiction novels set in Greece after the economic crisis. They also describe people’s everyday life and the impact of the economic collapse on their quotidian. I wonder how these short stories compare to Markaris political analysis of the state of his country.

February: Mother of All Pigs by Malu Halasa (Jordania, 2017)

The Sabas family lives in a small Jordanian town that for centuries has been descended upon by all manner of invaders, and now Evangelical tourists. The community relies on the bric-a-brac smuggled in during the throes of war, the quality of which depends entirely on who’s fighting. This time the action is in Syria, and the threat of ISIS lies just across the border. The water delivery is less frequent, but life in the town persists and Hussein Sabas is the Levant’s only pig butcher, selling all manner of chops, sausages, and hams, much to the chagrin of his observant neighbors.

This is only an extract of a blurb that is so long that you wonder why you need to read the book. Why do they do that? Anyway. We wanted to read a book from Jordania and this one sounds great.

March: Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir by Peter Balakian (USA, 1997)

Looking for a book from Armenia, we found Black Dog of Fate.

The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and ’60s New Jersey suburbia and immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock ‘n’ roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced–the Turkish government’s extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian’s relatives, in the century’s first genocide.

The New Jersey side reminds me of Philip Roth growing up in Newark and the Armenia side should be educational.

April: Until Stones Become Lighter Than Water by António Lobo Antunes (Portugal, 2017)

In this direct and vigorous tale, award-winning author António Lobo Antunes returns to the subject of the Portuguese colonial war in Angola with a dramatic account of atrocity and vengeance. Drawing on his own bitter experience as a soldier stationed for twenty-seven months in Angola, Lobo Antunes tells the story of a young African boy who is brought to Portugal by one of the soldiers who destroyed the child’s village, and of the boy’s subsequent brutal murder of this adoptive father figure at a ritual pig killing.

The Angolan War of Independence (1961-1974) was another bloody decolonization war and lasted even longer than the Algerian War of Independence. Young men were sent out there and were never the same.

May: Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo (Nigeria, 2017)

Ilesa, Nigeria. Ever since they first met and fell in love at university, Yejide and Akin have agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, and trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time—until her in-laws arrive on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife.

Traditions leading to the oppression of women is a bottomless well of inspiration for writers. Sadly. I’ve never read any book by a Nigerian writer. As always, I expect to discover a country along my journey with the book’s characters.

June: Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski (USA, 2010)

Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment The only problem: it’s in a lousy neighborhood. The one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape. But now he’s back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he’s reached rock-bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally. At first, he thinks it’s a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below. The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey’s father.

We loved The Blonde, I loved the Charlie Hardie trilogy and I’m thrilled to read Expiration Date. I’m sure it’ll be a good, recreational read. If you’re looking for good, fun and high-paced books, go for Swierczynski, you won’t be disappointed.

July: Snow by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2002)

As the snow begins to fall, a journalist arrives in the remote city of Kars on the Turkish border. Kars is a troubled place – there’s a suicide epidemic among its young women, Islamists are poised to win the local elections, and the head of the intelligence service is viciously effective. When the growing blizzard cuts off the outside world, the stage is set for a terrible and desperate act …

This is an award-winning book, it was very successful and I’m late to the party. I’m not sure I’ll like it but I’m sure curious.

And…That’s The List!

So, we’ll go to America, Nigeria, Portugal, Armenia, Jordania, Turkey, India, Togo, Greece and France. We’ll visit the 19th and 20th century history. We’ll see how wars affects common people and leave indelible traces in families. We’ll see how people survive in dire times and try to make it work. We’ll see slavery from two continents. We’ll have fun with Swierczynski.

I wish us a wonderful reading year, I’m quite happy with our choices. If you’ve read any of these books, please leave a message, I’m always curious about other readers’ thoughts.

Of course, as always, this is a hop-on hop-off reading bus and you’re free to readalong with us anytime. There’s nothing to do except tell me about your review or leave it in the comments in my billet about the book.