A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman, Jessica Cohen

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

 
Having read Flaubert's parrot I supposed to ought to read the novel that inspired it.
The book is about Mme. Bovary's thoughts of "If only X would happen, THEN I could be truly happy" and finding out that is simply not the case! I think I need to learn from her mistakes! 
In spite of the sadness of the book, I loved the descriptions of the Normandy countryside which are very vivid! 

Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec

 

The book is set in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, an extraordinary rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, moving, funny, or (sometimes) quite ordinary stories based on the people, objects or paintings in the room. . 11 rue Simon-Crubellier has been frozen at the instant in time when Bartlebooth dies where people are frozen in different apartments, on the stairs, and in the cellars, some rooms are vacant. Each chapter is set in each room (thus, the more rooms an apartment has the more chapters are devoted to it). In each room we learn about the residents of the room, or the past residents of the room, or about someone they have come into contact with. The idea of failure is a common theme.


 

The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novel book 4) by Elena Ferrante.

I read this, the fourth story of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet, in 2 days because I couldn't wait to find out what had happened to all the characters.It is quite a sad book without moving you to tears. It leaves a lot for you to think about after.

I loved the way the character'slives are so well-drawn, their emotions and experiences are so real, and the history and neighborhoods of Italy are so well-described that this book feels more like an autobiography than a novel

It feels almost Tolstion in the number of characters who keep cropping up.


Each of the four volumes has an established theme: the development of resentment and friendship in childhood, the limitations of social boundaries, the compromises and confinements of marriage, and the establishment of regrets in old age. 

I would like to read another by her.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels Book 3) by Elena Ferrante

 

This is the third book in the series... it felt like the middle, not a stand alone book.

I enjoyed reading about feminism and politics, through the story, we get a course in the riots and protests that occurred in the 1960s and '70s as communists fought fascists.

I liked the way the plot referenced incidents that had happened in the previous book.

Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

 
This is the second book in the My Brilliant Friend series, featuring the two friends Lila and Elena set in the girls twenties.
Ferrante is a very powerful writer. yet she does it in such a simple way - the book moves slowly but at the end of it you think WOW.
I love the way it reads like the private inner thoughts of Elena with the mechanics of friendship and growing up with the added pressures of deeply ingrained habits and customs of a different culture and generation.
I love the characters because they seem very real with ambition, but yet are flawed.
The book contains incidents of domestic abuse and rape  acceptable in a culture for men to beat women and makes pertinent social and political observations of that time. 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

This story isn't on the International Mann booker short-list but one of its prequels - however I thought I had better start with the first one!  It tells the story of intense friendship and rivalry between two girls growing up in the impoverished outskirts of Naples.

I really enjoyed the opening where suspense is created by the fact that the novel begins from the perspective of the story-teller as a sixty-something-year-old woman being told by her friend's son his mother has suddenly disappeared.

It feels vivid and authentic, more like an autobiography retold in the first person.

There are many characters -there are so many families in the neighbourhood, and everyone has nicknames that it was tough to remember who was who and who did what to which relative. (There is a cast of characters listed at the front of the book, but it's still confusing on a Kindle.)

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa

 
A compelling & circular tale set during the years from Angola declaring independence from Portugal & the ensuing decades of civil war but told from the viewpoint of an agoraphobic woman who barricades herself in her apartment for 30 years.

The story is a fantastic one and yet it has so much detail, recounted in the form that almost resembles journalism and feel real. However,  I wasn't sure about the interwoven stories of other characters - it did all fit together at the end but at times I found it confusing!

The Four Books by Yan Lianke

  
This story I found harder to get into it.This book is set at a re-education camp during the Great Leap Forward. It's a period of history that I know essentially nothing about, so it made for fascinating reading.

 The premise of the book is clever - the narrative chops and changes between three different "books" (the fourth book referred to in the title appears almost as an epilogue), each with a very different purpose. One is The Author writing a novel based on his experiences at the camp. One is the Author writing what's almost a religious story about The Child, the innocent despot who runs their camp. And one is the Author reporting to The Child and the higher ups on the actions of his former prisoners. However, at times I found it hard to discern enough difference among the four narratives.

In the middle the story took a bizarre turn which really drew me in where the Author goes off on his own to plan crops, and suddenly the crops are growing like crazy because he's feeding them his own blood. So that was bizarre, but clearly a metaphor for the Great Leap Forward and how it was ultimately a disaster. Then the book focuses on the great famine and how ultimately the residents of this camp start to die of starvation, leaving those still alive to contemplate just how hungry they have to be before they resort to cannibalism. 

None of the characters have actual names, they are called by the profession that landed them in this no mans land.

The Vegetarian: A Novel by Han Kang

 

I am so glad I am not a judge for the Mann Booker International Prize because I have loved all of them and this one is no different - although a complete contrast to the previous 2 books! 
This tells the story of Yeong-hye. Having recently had a dream that has convinced her to cease eating any meat whatsoever, and finds that such a decision is affect nearly all aspects of her life. It is a beautiful account of mental illness and societies perception of it - it is quite dark in places. Again not a long book  I read it easily in a couple of nights!

I liked how despite being a story that is explicitly about Yeong-hye, it is actually never told directly from her perspective. Instead, we are give about 60 pages a piece from her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. The oddest part about this formatting is the perspectives do not overlap. It is interesting to read about their personal issues, prejudices, and obsessions!

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

I loved this book - it is not a long book I read it easily on a Sunday afternoon! It tells the story of the life of Andreas Egger, an unremarkable man who ekes out a simple existence in an Austrian mountain valley. He is a thoughtful, gentle soul and though he encounters great hardship and misfortune, he never fails to appreciate and be thankful for the smaller things.

I love the treatment of time - years pass in a couple of pages or even paragraphs, or a day may take pages to describe.
It is full of wisdom and stunning imagery which results in a heartbreaking, humbling and inspiring story.  
It makes you think about the things which make you YOU and the coincidences which silently lead you through your life. 

A Strangeness in my Mind by Orhan Pamuk

       

It is the story of boza seller Mevlut, and his life in Istanbul set over four decades which is basically a history of Istanbul through main character, Mevlut Karatas between 1969 and 2012. Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul and observes a large number of changes.

Pamuk's title is taken from Wordsworth's poem, The Prelude

"I had melancholy thoughts ...
a strangeness in my mind,
A feeling that I was not for that hour,
Nor for that place."

I loved the  detail given creating a set of characters and a sense of place that I felt I had got to know intimately
The story moves forwards by seamlessly shifting from one character’s viewpoint to another and adding gradually new viewpoint which I initially didn't like but I quickly found to be effective and interesting! 
It felt like a Dickensian saga.

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker, Sam Taylor

This book was a who-done-it, providing red herrings, changing accounts from many different people, a poignant friendship and an illicit love. 

I liked the passages about writers , writing and publishing.
I liked the portrayal of the feel of small town in New England, its people and the fierceness of protecting their own. 
I am not sure I would class it as a thriller - as at now point was a in anyway mildly scared!
It was long book and in parts felt slow.

Seiobo There Below by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Ottilie Mulzet

This book won the Man booker International Prize this year.  It's an interesting, challenging and unusual book, of interlocking short stories about art, beauty and the sacred; such as a heron stands perched above a stream, waiting in perfect tension to catch its prey; monks pray to a statue of the Buddha, knowing every detail of its tarnished face but yearning to recognize and be enveloped by the Buddha's infinite compassion; a cynical tourist wanders in a museum in Venice, but sees a half-remembered painting of the dead Christ and is overwhelmed by pathos and emotion; a Japanese goddess descends to earth, bearing a fruit of immortality, searching for perfection.

 I loved the chapter numbers - instead of the usual order, they are Fibonacci numbers.

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault

 

A short easy read novel dealing with obsession, friendship and haiku writing.

I loved its beautiful love story.
The poetry is beautiful with an introduction to haiku.  
At about a 100 pages, it does a lot in a short space.

The ending is guessable from quite early on.

The Listener by Tove Jansson

 

I love Tove Jansson - a collection of odd short stories where not much happens but that contain beautiful descriptions that make me want to move to Scandinavia. 

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

 

I love love love Haruki Murakami. His books are a mixture of Alice in wonderland crossed with diskworld ... they are very strange!

It describes characters being transported into parallel world 

Good points

Even if you read the end before you should (shhh) you have no idea how the book will get there

Everything is meticulous described... there are no odd ends

The construction of the chapters is very clever - one character write one, the other the next and then back to the first - very clever

Bad points

It is long

I finished it....