In her fourth instalment of her multi-part review of Tim Parks’ essay collection Where I’m Reading From. The Changing World of Books, Gesa Stedman disagrees Read more
Review
Responding to Tim Parks, Where I’m Reading From Part II
Gesa Stedman continues her multi-part review of Tim Parks’ essay collection Where I’m Reading From, this time with a response to “Why Finish Books?”. In contrast to the author, she thinks books deserve to be read cover to cover. I learned two things from Parks’ essay entitled “Why finish books?”: […] Read more
New Series on The Literary Field Kaleidoscope for World Book Day: A Review of Tim Parks’ “Where I’m Reading From” in Monthly Instalments
It is World Book Day today (only the English celebrate it in March) and a highly suitable occasion for us to launch a new monthly series: a chapter-by-chapter review of Tim Parks’ essay collection Where I’m Reading From. The Changing World of Books. He first published his collection Read more
A Chance to Be Someone Else – A Review of Ali Smith’s novel How to be Both
There are only a few books that can reveal the condition of being-in-the-world through the phenomenal power of language. Ali Smith’s How to Be Both is one of them, as Alican Akyüz finds in his review. In 1969, B. S. Johnson published The Unfortunates, a book that comes with 27 […] Read more
Mary Beard’s “Women & Power “- A Conversation with Sabine Blackmore
In November 2017, Mary Beard’s book Women & Power. A Manifesto hit the shelves – and a nerve. In the two parts titled “The Public Voice of Women” and “Women in Power”, Mary Beard draws our attention to culturally embedded stereotypes and “cultural template[s] which [work] to disempower women”. She […] Read more
Not a Travel Guide but a Guide on Travelling
Are any of your New Year’s resolutions connected to travelling? Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel is a treatise on an everlasting contemporary phenomenon: the desire to travel, the longing to escape the boredom and lethargy of everyday life. Jana Wiggenhauser reviews de Botton’s novel for the Literary Field […] Read more
Why all Men (and Women) Should Read This – Or, How to Avoid the Authenticity Trap, Holly McNish “Nobody Told Me” (Review)
Gesa Stedman was nearly overwhelmed by the quality of the poetry, the potential to move her readers, as well as the topic of Holly McNish`s award-winning poetry collection and memoir “Nobody Told Me”. All men should read this. Holly McNish’s poetry will teach them things nobody tells you in advance, […] Read more
Beatlebone by Kevin Barry – Experimental Fiction on an Irish Island
Gesa Stedman enjoys Kevin Barry’s prize-winning novel Beatlebone which follows John Lennon’s trip to County Mayo during a creative crisis. All the reviews printed on the back of the book were right for once: Beatlebone is an exceptional novel. It is formally challenging but it is nevertheless possible to climb […] Read more
The Arrogance of the “Hybrid” Intellectual – A Review of Broken German by Tomer Gardi
Gesa Stedman has little patience for a recent publication written in ‘migrant’s German’, attempting to playfully overcome the current German angst about too many refugees and the cultural and social changes these might bring. A series of urban vignettes centring on Radili and his friends with different ‘multicultural’ backgrounds as […] Read more
A Boy in Winter – Rachel Seiffert’s New Novel
Gesa Stedman reviews Rachel Seiffert’s latest novel, set in Ukraine in 1941, which is as devastating as it is masterful. Ukraine, 1941. Two boys, on the run. A German road engineer, waking to the sounds of German soldiers rounding up Jews. The schoolmaster, his elderly mother, his wife and their […] Read more
