Short Stories Sholom Aleichem The Pale of Settlement Yiddish 1916 131 Schocken Books Possibly the most famous production in all modern Yiddish literature. Tevye recounts the chronicle of his life (and his daughters' weddings) to the author. Humour constantly belies the heart-rending misery that lies at the heart of most of the stories. 8 Yes 12 Short Stories Katherine Mansfield New Zealand English 1920 202 Penguin Modern Classics Mansfield's fascinating stories of the every day, written with consummate style. The only disappointing tale I thought was the first and longest, Prelude. 8 Yes 12 Short Stories Leonid Andreev Russia Russian 1915 255 Dedalus European Classics This collection seems largely to be from Andreev's early work, and is certainly not his best. But lesser Andreev is still very good. 6 Yes 12 Short Stories ed. Kirsten Lodge Russia Russian Various 343 Dedalus A brilliant collection of short stories from Russia's Silver Age, full of fin de siecle doom and decadence. Bryusov's futuristic Republic of the Southern Cross and the pitch-dark stories by Andreev particularly stand out. Also includes good stories by Fyodor Sologub and Zinaida Gippius. 8 Yes 12 Fiction Ermanno Cavazzoni Italy Italian 1987 319 Serpent's Tail Cavazzoni's account of a perhaps insane vagrant's investigations into the borderlands between the worlds of appearance and reality. Endlessly inventive and fascinating. 8 Yes 12 Fiction Miroslav Krleža Croatia Croatian 1938 182 Quartet Encounters The traditional European novel of a man who hates his country and its entire bourgeois establishment, with a nice sideline on the possible insanity of the narrator. 7 Yes 12 Fiction H.G.Wells England English 1897 192 Penguin Martians invade Woking. The English fail to keep a stiff upper lip; some in their panic are even seen walking about without hats. Wells is a fairly dull writer and it all ends rather undramatically. 1 Yes 12 Non-Fiction George Rudé England English 1964 301 Fontana Straight-forward account of the French revolution and the subsequent period of Napoleonic Empire, detailing its general effect on the rest of Europe. 6 Yes 12 Fiction Leo Tolstoy Russia Russian 1856 184 Penguin Classics Tolstoy fictionalises his own experiences at Sebastopol, vividly recreating the siege. 7 Yes 10 Fiction Emmanuel Bove France French 1924 150 Paladin Bove's wonderful account of a lonely ex-solider's life in Paris, written as a series of affecting sketches. His "friends" are the occasional people whose lives happen to entangle with his own. 9 Yes 12 Criticism Cyril Connolly England English 1938 279 Penguin Modern Classics Connolly's three-part critical work: the first (and best) is a survey of the scene over the last fifty years; the second, speculation on what leads writers astray; and the third, an incredibly tedious account of his upbringing and time at Eton. 2 Yes 12 Fiction William Faulkner USA English 1953 239 Penguin Modern Classics Faulkner's more or less sequel to Sanctuary, written half as a play. The prose sections are Faulkner as his verbose extreme (complete with page-long parentheses etc.) and I thoroughly enjoyed them; the theatrical sections I found less interesting. 5 Yes 12 Fiction Anna Banti Italy Italian 1953 214 Serpent's Tail A fictionalised account of the Renaissance painter, Artemisia Gentileschi's life, and her struggle to find herself a place in a man's world, all written with extraordinary skill. 8 Yes 11 Fiction Tomas Eloy Martinez Argentina Spanish 1995 408 Anchor The longest novel I'll read this year. I enjoyed it, but I became stuck for a long time in the middle, feeling it was becoming too repetitive. One of those books (typical of the Spanish language) which seemingly portray documentary fact but which, reading, you remain ever wondering about. Concerns the adventures of Eva Peron's corpse. 6 Yes 11 Fiction Bohumil Hrabal Czechoslovakia Czech 1976 98 Abacus Enjoyed this in parts, but I didn't feel it was up to what I expect from Hrabal (but then I haven't read Hrabal for years). 6 Yes 11 Non-Fiction Vladimir Nabokov Russia Russian 1926 114 Vintage Nabokov's first novel: I wasn't really expecting too much of it (since his other early works I've read are comparatively light-weight), but turned out surprisingly interesting. About Russian emigres living in Berlin, of course. 6 Yes 11 Non-Fiction Vitaly Shentalinsky Russia Russian 1993 285 Harvill Shentalinsky's intention (this was before the fall of the USSR) was to try to open up and search the KGB archives for lost (i.e. confiscated) manuscripts of arrested writers (for instance, Babel was known to have almost a complete novel he had been writing). Perhaps he didn't have so much success with the manuscripts, but the writers' files themselves make nonetheless compelling reading. 7 Yes 11 Fiction Mempo Giardinelli Argentina Spanish 1999 93 Latin American Literary Review Press This is becoming a sort of familiar genre in my Latin-American reading: the novel of the amoral killing spree. Giardinelli tries to justify the amoralism with reference to the amoralism of, in particular, politics. The result is somewhat juvenile. 0 Yes 11 Reportage Ryszard Kapuscinski Poland Polish 1998 325 Penguin Marvellous selection of reportage from Kapuscinski's years in Africa, starting out in Ghanaian independence, and reaching down to today's troubled wars in the north-east. Particularly interesting on the differences between African and European ways of thinking about the world. The best work of his I've read. 9 Yes 11 Fiction Benjamin Constant France French 1816 125 Penguin Classics Another strongly psychological novel from the early c19th. Man falls in love with woman, tires of her but finds it difficult to break off their relationship. 7 Yes 11 Fiction Mikhail Bulgakov Russia Russian 1925 128 Harvill Bulgakov's mad sort of Soviet Frankenstein extravaganza, thoroughly enjoyable. 7 Yes 11 Novellas Friedrich Durrenmatt Switzerland German 1958 413 Picador Five of them at least - though, despite the title, apparently not all of them. My favourites were the two crazy detective stories at the beginning. I was thinking it was remarkable no-one had ever made a film of them, but then the last story, called The Pledge, of course they had. 7 Yes 11 Fiction Wolfgang Koeppen Germany German 1934 172 Granta A story of futile and frustrated love, written in an exceedingly pleasing style [I was particularly fascinated by his use of square brackets]. My whole reading was coloured by a Nazi reviewer, quoted in the introduction, who was horrified that such a pathetic hero should appear in a work of German literature and who suggested the author should be sent to a concentration camp. 6 Yes 10 Short Stories ed. C T Hsia China Chinese 1921-1965 239 Columbia University Press A marvellous collections of Chinese short stories. Hsia wilfully avoids the obvious names (Lu Hsun, Lao She, Mao Tun, whom, of course, we've all read). In particular I enjoyed Yu Ta-Fu (I've read quite a few of his short stories before), Shen Ts'ung Wen, and especially Eileen Chang's marvellous story of class-induced insanity, The Golden Cangue. 7 Yes 10 Short Stories Valéry Larbaud France French 1918 201 Sun & Moon Classics I give it its French title, rather than the dull English title "Childish Things". Apparently Proust's favourite book (so the blurb says): a series of stories of childhood and its relations with the adult world, having a similar thematic coherence as say Dubliners. Became stronger, I felt, as the collection went on, particularly the longest story, The Days of Glory, and the last, Portrait of Eliane at Fourteen. 6 Yes 10 Fiction Henry Williamson England English 1919 245 Zenith Traditional English pastoral, of the harsh, unflinching sort. A boy is brought up in the countryside by a stern single father. He goes to school. Part of a quartet (or perhaps quintet, I'm not sure). 2 Yes 10 Non-Fiction John Steele Gordon U.S. English 1988 380 Weidenfeld & Nicholson The scarlet woman being, of course, the stock of the Erie railroad. An endless tale of market manipulation and boardroom battle. 6 Yes 10 Fiction Péter Nádas Hungary Hungarian 1977 245 Vintage Much disappointed by Nádas, of whom I'd heard great things. This is a book about treason (in one form or another), told from a child's point of view and with an accompanying lack of consecutive narrative. It wasn't this which tired me though (I enjoyed the child's sections in general), but the long boring historical narratives of the grandfather. 2 Yes 10 Fiction Mikhail Kuzmin Russia Russian 1906 99 Hesperus Classics Account on a young's man intellectual and sexual awakening, told in a series of impressionistic moments. A very fine piece of writing, let down at times perhaps by its didacticism. 6 Yes 10 Fiction Paul Auster US English 199 228 Grove Press Usual paranoid fare from Auster. Writer gives up writing, turns instead to terrorism. 5 Yes 9 Fiction J M Coetzee South Africa English 1999 220 Vintage Meditation on white man's place in post-colonial, post-feminist South Africa (he isn't happy there, that's what). Aging lecturer has affair with student. Curiously, people in this day and age seem to give a damn. - Some good scenes, interspersed with many more tedious episodes, about killing sick animals and writing Byronic operas. 2 Yes 9 Fiction Flann O'Brien Ireland Gaelic 1941 125 Grafton Books Satire on Irish poverty. Very funny in parts. 4 Yes 9 Fiction Adolfo Bioy-Casares Argentina Spanish 1985 167 Bloomsbury Young man comes to the big city. Constantly warned the city-folk will exploit his country ways, they don't. 2 Yes 9 Novellas Miguel de Unamuno Spain Spanish 1920 228 Grove Press Three tales of a somewhat romantic, gothic character. Completely mad and wonderful. 8 Yes 8 Fiction Grazia Deledda Italy Italian 1920 224 Dedalus European Classics Priest torn apart by love for one of his parishoners, his lack of belief in god, his mother etc. - I do have a fondness for novels about people in emotional torment. 9 Yes 8 Short Stories ed. Nieh Hua-Ling China Chinese 1962 148 Heritage Press Or, more specifically, by Chinese women living in Taiwan. First four were not so good; the last four much better (Chang Ai-ling, Hou Jung-sheng, Nieh Hua-ling and my favourite Hung Tse-hwei). You'll find the first under the pen-name Eileen Chang, and you might find the third. 2 Yes 8 Drama Euripides Greece Greek 438-414BC 157 Penguin Classics Hippolytus is a fascinating play about the folly of chastity (and associated pride). Alcestis is fine enough (woman dies in place of her husband), while Iphigenia in Tauris is pretty dreadful. 6 Yes 8 Fiction Alasdair Gray Scotland English 1985 142 King Penguin Scotsman comes to London full of Nietzschean will to power, determined to get on in the world. He fails, much like the book he finds himself in. Not one of Mr Gray's best then. In fact, each book I read of his disappoints me more than the last. 0 Yes 8 Travel Karel Čapek Czechoslovakia Czech 1924 192 Geoffrey Bles Čapek visits England: likes the countryside, but not the towns. Recounted with much delightful humour. 6 Yes 8 Fiction Joseph Roth Austro-Hungarian Empire German 1934 273 Granta Usual consummate story-telling from Roth, this time a commander during the Russian revolution has his life changed through his involvement in a pogrom. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the middle for once, more than the beginning or the end. 3 Yes 8 Fiction Denis Diderot France French 1760 189 Penguin Classics Account of the life of an illegitimate child forced into a nunnery. Splendid kind of agitprop, full of religiously inspired sadism and homosexuality. Feels quite modern in its psychological realism. 8 Yes 8 Short Stories Stanislaw Lem Poland Polish 1973 220 Mandarin Decently written science-fiction, mostly on the subject of the interrelations of men with machines. 2 Yes 8 Fiction Milan Kundera Czech Rep/France French 1998 152 Faber and Faber A man and a woman misunderstand one another; or was it all a dream? Has its clever bits, I'll admit, and nice on the minutiae of everyday living; but overall found it deeply unsatisfying. 1 Yes 8 Short Stories I.L.Peretz The Pale of Settlement Yiddish Various 157 Schocken Books Some of these I loved; some of them I found tedious; some troubling; some incomprehensible. 5 Yes 7 Fiction Peter Handke Austria German 1986 246 Farrar, Straus & Giroux Enjoyed the first half or so - interesting account of the usual Austro-Hungarian crisis of identity - but after that became too abstract and lost in its own symbolism. 5 Yes 7 Short Stories Anton Chekhov Russia Russian Various 310 Chatto & Windus Volume 12 of his complete tales. Mostly these are told from the point of view of children or animals. A few real classics, but even lesser Chekhov is better than most. 7 Yes 7 Non-Fiction Peter Earle England English 2003 253 Methuen Been looking for a long time for a decent book on pirates, and this one served well. Particularly fascinating, I found, on the relationship between pirate and state. 6 Yes 7 Fiction Ramón J. Sender Spain Spanish 1953 92 Iberia Airways Something of a Spanish c20th classic (though of course entirely unknown in this country): a priest conducts a mass for a revolutionary whom he himself betrayed. 6 Yes 7 Fiction Juan José Saer Argentina Spanish 1988 196 Serpent's Tail The usual long rich sentences, this time dealing with the frustrations of a nineteenth-century psychic towards both his increasingly positivist times and the unfathomable mind of his wife. 7 Yes 7 Fiction Roger Vailland France French 1958 248 Jonathan Cape Fascinating vision of a few days in the life of a small Italian coastal town, on the cusp between an archaic feudalism and a modern liberalism. 7 Yes 7 Non-Fiction Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot U.S. English 1985 147 Cambridge University Press By modern, of course, they mean since the Muslim conquest. Useful basic account. 4 Yes 7 Short Stories Rudyard Kipling England English 1891 307 Penguin Classics The English master of the "story-telling" short story. As with other early stories, mostly based in India. Contains Without Benefit of Clergy, one of my favourite stories of all. 7 Yes 6 Short Stories Pedro de Alarcón Spain Spanish 1881 191 Penguin Classics Perfectly structured short stories, perhaps a little too classically composed for my taste. 6 Yes 6 Fiction Witold Gombrowicz Poland Polish 1960 160 Calder & Boyars Marvellously written account of something or other occurring in Poland in 1943. The action was clear enough; but I was a bit lost on what Gombrowicz's point was exactly. 9 Yes 6 Short Stories ed. Carlos Fuentes/Julio Ortega Various: Latin America Spanish / Portuguese 1949-1994 324 Picador Decent enough collection and overview of Latin American writing since Borges. Frustrating that there seem to be so many good writers otherwise untranslated. 5 Yes 6 Short Stories Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Germany German 1774 249 Signet Classic In which Goethe makes a compelling case for suicide. Also greatly enjoyed Goethe in Sesenheim, an excerpt from Dichtung and Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), so will be tracking down more Goethe. 9 Yes 6 Short Stories Eça de Queiroz Portugal Portuguese 1889 186 The Bodley Head Usual fine stuff from Eça, title story a Faustian notion dealing with issues such as globalisation and colonialism. My favourite though was the last story, José Matias. 6 Yes 6 Non-Fiction Colin Wells England English 1984 271 Fontana Respectable history of the Roman Empire, though like all such histories concentrated too much on the early empire (which to be honest, I'm not so interested in). The 3rd century was covered, as usual, in about a page. 4 Yes 6 Fiction Friedrich Fouqué Germany German 1811 203 Dedalus Marvellous slice of German Romanticism, involving knights and water sprites. 8 Yes 6 Non-Fiction G M Trevelyan England English 1909 293 Pelican Account of Garibaldi's crazy invasion of Sicily, and what preceded. 7 Yes 6 Fiction Ivan Turgenev Russia Russian 1871 176 Penguin Books The usual Turgenev (and therefore Russian) love story. There's even a duel. Doesn't really pick up until the last 70 pages. 4 Yes 6 Memoir Elie Wiesel Jewish Diaspora Yiddish 1958 115 Penguin Modern Classics Account of time spent in Auschwitz, the impact of which is a loss of faith in God. 2 Yes 6 Fiction Manuel Rivas Spain Galician 1998 160 The Harvill Press Love story from the Spanish civil war. 0 Yes 6 Fiction Alejo Carpentier Cuba Spanish 1956 122 Minerva Traditional Latin American subject: man on the run from the regime, told in a reasonably experimental manner. Didn't enjoy it as much as Explosion in a Cathedral. 4 Yes 6 Fiction Paolo Maurensig Italy Italian 1993 140 Phoenix House Very readable tale about the world of chess in the early c20th. (I was wondering if the author was making it all up, but I checked out some of the names on wikipedia and it seems he wasn't). Drifts into the realm of the kabbalah and the holocaust, as you might expect. 1 Yes 5 Short Stories Samuel Beckett Ireland English 1970 93 Penguin Modern Classics Basically the same story told four times (I exaggerate, of course: The Calmative at least is a bit different). Beckett finally loses his way and starts writing substance over style. Tramp is pitied by humanity; refuses humanity's help and lives life own way. 5 Yes 5 Non-Fiction CP FitzGerald England English 1966 354 Penguin A complete history of China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines, packed into 350 pages. Found the eastern perspective of, say, North Korean isolationism fascinating. 5 Yes 5 Short Stories Gianni Celati Italy Italian 1987 126 Serpent's Tail A collection of stories based on the idea of the perception of a world beyond the clearly visible. 5 Yes 5 Non-Fiction Niall Ferguson England English 2003 381 Penguin History of the British Empire told from the perspective of its contribution towards capitalism. All fair enough, until the end where he starts suggesting, for the good of us all, that the Americans should formalise their economic empire and take over the world. 3 Yes 5 Fiction Kálmán Mikszáth Hungary Hungarian 1889 97 Corvina Press Austro-Hungarian town acquires talismanic caftan which wards off imperial depradations. 4 Yes 5 Non-Fiction Geoffrey Parker England English 1987 270 Penguin History of the revolution against Spanish Habsburg rule which resulted in the formation of what is today The Netherlands. 5 Yes 5 Fiction Paul Auster USA English 1987 314 Faber & Faber One of those occasional masterpieces of metafiction. 8 Yes 5 Fiction Virginia Woolf England English 1922 168 Penguin Modern Classics Woolf's first foray into stream of consciousness, traces a man's life from childhood to death of WW1. Long time since I've read any Woolf - marvellously written. 8 Yes 5 Short Stories Michel Tournier France French 1978 220 Methuen The usual strange, slightly twisted vision. Wasn't so impressed at first, but overall probably my favourite of Tournier's works so far. 5 Yes 5 Fiction Rex Warner England English 1941 192 Penguin One of famous unknown classics in English literature. Man suffers bizarre catalogue of revelations after sinister Nazi-like Air-Force takes over the village where he lives. Strange stuff, and very interesting I found on the notion of a transvaluation of all values. 3 Yes 5 Novellas Henryk Sienkiewicz Poland Polish 1897 204 Angel Books Three satirical novellas, the first (about incipient Polish democracy) being my favourite. 5 Yes 4 Fiction Ivan Kushchevsky Russia Russian 1871 368 Calder Books Much overlooked novel of the long Russian revolutionary period. Very funny, with a strangely modern air to its Dickensianness, perhaps because of its concentration on youth without adults. 7 Yes 4 Fiction Victor Serge France? French 1931 273 Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative Account of anarchist revolutionaries in Spain and France during WW1, written as a succession of dislocated meetings between individuals. Concentrates on character and as such fails to become overly political. 6 Yes 4 Fiction Marguerite Duras France French 1984 123 Flamingo Struggled to find any interest in other Duras books, but enjoyed this. 5 Yes 4 Fiction Leonardo Sciascia Italy Italian 1971 119 Paladin Murder tale in mainland Italy, also becomes political. 4 Yes 4 Fiction Leonardo Sciascia Italy Italian 1961 122 Paladin Usual tale of murder in Sicily; becomes political. 4 Yes 4 Fiction Ignazio Silone Italy Italian 1933 160 Everyman Well-written account of an Italian village's emergence into the modern world during the Fascist era. Not too propagandist. 5 Yes 3 Short Stories Yashushi Inoue Japan Japanese 1965 124 Tuttle Books Very typical c20th Japanese short stories. Quiet, oblique etc.. 0 Yes 1 Fiction Tibor Dery Hungary Hungarian 1956 123 Penguin Family adopt dog, largely for the sake of an analogy with communist Hungary. Second half better than first. 2 Yes 3 Fiction Patrick Modiano France French 1990 120 Harvill Press Always expecting more from France's contemporary writers, it's often disappointing to find them just the same as ours. A slight, oblique tale. 0 Yes 3 Short Stories Masuji Ibuse Japan Japanese 1950 134 Kodansha International A varied collection, with a few very strong stories. Particularly enjoyed Old Ushitora. 4 Yes 3 Fiction Luis Sepúlveda Chile Spanish 1989 128 Sceptre Old man pursues homicidal ocelot in Amazon jungle. 1 Yes 2 Fiction Guy de Maupassant France French 1888 176 Penguin Classics Tale of jealousy, envy and suspicion, told with fine melodramatic emotion and intense psychological analysis as you'd expect of Maupassant. Still preferred A Woman's Life. 6 Yes 2 Philosophy Plato Greece Greek c.380BC 157 Penguin Classics Both these dialogue raise the question: can virtue be taught? The answer: a typical Socratic shrug of the shoulders. 5 Yes 2 Fiction Tayeb Salih Sudan Arabic 1966 169 Penguin Modern Classics Marvellously readable account of a (perhaps futile and misguided) post-colonial revenge. 8 Yes 2 Fiction Sholem Aleichem The Pale of Settlement Yiddish 1917 222 G P Putnam's Sons A novel of wealthy and largely idle Warsaw Jews, far from the shtetl world of Tevye. Told through a series of letters and written from about twenty different points of view, the plot becomes absurdly complicated until the reader is entirely bemused and uncertain what is going on or who is telling the truth. 7 Yes 2 Fiction Ogai Mori Japan Japanese 1913 119 Tuttle Books I can't say I thought much of this, except towards the end. Like a lot of Japanese literature I've read, it was about adultery. 2 Yes 2 Fiction Kobo Abé Japan Japanese 1973 178 Tuttle Books Might have rated as much as a 6 at the beginning, while still positing the concept of the box man, but gradually seemed to drift off into a dull and unclear plot. Quite good on the paranoia of modern living / voyeurism. But halfway through, I found myself only wishing it was over. 1 Yes 1 Fiction Pa Chin China Chinese 1931 329 Anchor Books Worried at first this would be overly political, was glad to find the political become subsumed into the lives of individual characters (as perhaps you'd only expect from an anarchist writer). Fascinating portrait of China on the brink of social revolution, with the entire political system finding its counterpart in one bourgeois family and the destruction its traditional values wreak on individual lives. Becomes wonderfully melodramatic in the second half. 6 Yes 1 Fiction Julio Llamazares Spain Spanish 1988 130 The Harvill Press The fourth Spanish-language book I've read about a deserted village - seems to be quite a theme (usually connected with civil war, whether Spanish or Mexican). This one has a suitable sense of lonely misery and madness, if that's your sort of thing. Quite unnerving at times, too. 3 Yes 1 Fiction Willem Elsschot Holland Dutch 1933 126 Granta An enjoyable enough tale about the bourgeois and business (or about Elsschot and Dutch literary society, if you choose to read it thus). Nice narratorial style. Kills off the best character (the narrator's grandmother), however, after about 10 pages. 3 Yes 1 Non-Fiction Rebecca Goldstein USA English 2005 261 W.W.Norton Enjoyed the ideas, and the character of Gödel is of course very attractive (a paranoid recluse). If Gödel is the hero, then Wittgenstein (and post-modernism in general) is the villain. On the other hand, the writing is at times repetitious and could have done with some more editing. 4 Yes 1