Championing the wonders of translated fiction, one review at a time. Slightly older and more haggard than the photos suggest. Bitter at most things, really.
Tony Malone
Loading...
Just catching up on all the "Jane Austen is too hard for teens" drama on Twitter and was reminded of when my twelve-year-old daughter casually decided to check out 'Les Misérables' after watching the film...
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2019/12/07/l...
Just misread “libros” as “litbros”
A business selling lingerie that helps “your spine and organs move back to where they’re supposed to be”; a girl who gets stuck in a doorway like "an uncooperative cork"; a book that starts with the end of the world; and a home flooded for a hydroelectric dam.
Me on new translated fiction:
Next week, Biblioasis are publishing the North American edition of Jón Kalman Stefánsson's 'The Heart of Man' (tr. Philip Roughton), and I've used the occasion as an excuse to reread, and reflect (at great length!) on the whole trilogy :)
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/06/11/j...
After a bit of a break, I'm back to my chapter-by-chapter Genji coverage today, with a post that's longer than the chapter it's reviewing! Join me (and Genji and Tamakazura) for Chapter 27, 'Kagaribi'
' :)
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/t...
Something a little more niche today on the blog as I take a look at Paul Gordon Schalow's 'A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan' (from @UHPRESSNEWS) - let's hear it for the boys ;)
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/06/01/a...
My latest review takes a look at Han Kang's 'Light and Thread' (tr. Maya West, e.yaewon & Paige Aniyah-Morris), a collection that brings the writer's Nobel Prize speech with a selection of other texts :)
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/06/08/l...
My final review for the month is of Shūsaku Endō's early novel 'The Sea and Poison', (translated by Michael Gallagher, published by Pushkin Press) a book that examines a doctor's involvement with some very dark acts during the Second World War...
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/05/29/t...
My May Wrap-Up post - a summary of a rather lean month on the blog...
tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2026/05/31/m...
Tony Malone
Some thoughts on They by Helle Helle www.stuckinabook.com/they-by-hell...
