Reading Icelandic crime while in Iceland. Enjoying this one immensely.

More of the glacier lagoon. This place was haunting and magical.

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon.

Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval at the Reykjavik Art Museum.

Books were bought.

Icelandic landscapes.

A waterfall and a rainbow.

Iceland and geysers.

A bracing morning walk by the harbour.

The gorgeous Hallgrimskirkja in the evening.

Reykjavik.

Hello Reykjavik.

Boarded the flight for Iceland. Super excited! Laxness to give me company.

What I read in August. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/a...

I read some brilliant books in August. Five for #WITMonth and one for #NYRBWomen25. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/a...

I read some brilliant books in August. Five for #WITMonth and one for #NYRBWomen25. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/a...

TALK by Linda Rosenkrantz is an excellent, unique novel created from recorded conversations among three friends, capturing the flavour of the 1960s. Sex, relationships, LSD, partying, psychoanalysis, nothing is off limits. Read this for #NYRBWomen25. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/t...

TALK by Linda Rosenkrantz is an excellent, unique novel created from recorded conversations among three friends, capturing the flavour of the 1960s. Sex, relationships, LSD, partying, psychoanalysis, nothing is off limits. Read this for #NYRBWomen25. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/t...

My new blog post on Linda Rosenkrantz's unique, frank, and fun novel, TALK. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/t...

Today's bookmail. A new Celia Dale is always exciting.

Anna Kavan’s titles tell a story in themselves: Let Me Alone, A Stranger Still, Who Are You?, I Am Lazarus, Machines in the Head, Asylum Piece, A Scarcity of Love. Not to mention “The Enemy,” “Airing a Grievance,” “There Is No End,” “The End in Sight,” and Ice.

"I cannot put on the light. The room is as dark as a box lined with black velvet that someone has dropped into a frozen well. Everything is quiet except when the house-bones creak in the frost or a lump of snow slides from the roof with a sound like a stealthy sigh." "At Night", #NYRBWomen25

I’ve written a few thoughts on Audition by Katie Kitamura, 2025, a perplexing read about how we perceive ourselves and those we love 💙📚 #BookSky #BookReview #BookerPrize #audiobook https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/6bfa7e13-0c1b-48c4-ae49-f2a20a296595

I loved AUTUMN ROUNDS by Jacques Poulin - a subtle, beguiling novel about books and nature, a meditation on forming connections and finding love late in life. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2022/11/28/a... #BlogArchives

My new blog post on THE DEATH OF A BEEKEEPER, another excellent novel by Lars Gustafsson. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/t... Translated from the Swedish by Janet K. Swaffar and Gutram H. Weber.

#NYRBWomen25 El Greco’s portraiture & Bruegel’s snowy landscapes make an appearance in one of Kavan’s stories today, AIRING A GRIEVANCE. “the curious balance of latent sensuality & dominant intellectualism seen to the best advantage in some of the work of El Greco.” (p12)

The savagely entertaining stories of Agota Kristof - I Don't Care, translated by Chris Andrews: 1streading.wordpress.com/2025/09/12/i...

"What I have learned: that there is no real escape from life. One can only postpone the decision with cunning and cleverness. But there is no way out. It is a totally closed system, and at the exit there is only death. And that naturally is no exit at all."

New #bookmail.

"What I have learned: that there is no real escape from life. One can only postpone the decision with cunning and cleverness. But there is no way out. It is a totally closed system, and at the exit there is only death. And that naturally is no exit at all."

"Somewhere in the world I have an implacable enemy, although I do not know his name...The fact that I know absolutely nothing about him makes life intolerable, for I am obliged to look upon everybody with equal suspicion. There is literally not a soul whom I can trust." The first two stories are 🔥.

My new blog post on THE DEATH OF A BEEKEEPER by Lars Gustafsson - a wonderful, introspective novel on pain, terminal illness, and the meaning of life. Translated from the Swedish by Janet K. Swaffar & Gutram H. Weber. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/t...

#NYRBWomen25 “It is useless for me to attempt to any further approach to people who are utterly inaccessible, utterly out of sympathy with me. Almost at my last gasp, I come to throw myself on their mercy, & a lecture is all they can find for me in their empty hearts.”(p6) This first story is so 💔.

My new blog post on THE DEATH OF A BEEKEEPER by Lars Gustafsson - a wonderful, introspective novel on pain, terminal illness, and the meaning of life. Translated from the Swedish by Janet K. Swaffar & Gutram H. Weber. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/t...

"Up to now I never really grasped that the possibility of experiencing ourselves as something clearly defined, ordered, as a human self depends on the possibility of a future. The foundation of the entire concept of the self is that it will continue to exist tomorrow." #CurrentlyReading

ICYMI I wrote about the latest novel from Dutch writer Gerrand Bakker, tr. by David Colmer @archipelagobooks.bsky.social The reluctant barber: The Hairdresser’s Son by Gerbrand Bakker roughghosts.com/2025/09/07/t...

I loved Han Kang's WE DO NOT PART and this was a wonderful episode.

"She had to go downstairs again to help Maxl. He wasn't dead. This was America, not Gestapo-ridden Europe. He couldn't just lie there on the walk. She must go to him. Even if his attackers were outside hovering, she must do it. It was the creed of refugees; help one another." #CurrentlyReading

"As the snow lands on the wet asphalt, each flake seems to falter for a moment. Then, like a trailing sentence at the close of a conversation, like the dying fall of a final cadence, like fingertips retreating before ever landing on a shoulder, the flakes sink into the slick blackness and are gone."

Started this today. THE BLACKBIRDER by Dorothy B. Hughes.

"I simply feel much too vital to be dying. I imagine death to be something much more foggy, much feebler. A dying person can't take long walks with the dog in between attacks of pain."

I wrote about Han Kang's brilliant, haunting, hallucinatory novel, WE DO NOT PART. Five stars from me and a strong contender for my year end list. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/07/w... Translated from the Korean by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris.

Hey #NYRBWomen25 - Leonora & I spent some time together today at SFMOMA! 🦚

My new blog post on WE DO NOT PART by Han Kang - a haunting, dreamlike novel on female friendship, trauma, and genocide...brimming with vivid imagery of snow. Translated by E. Yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/07/w... #WITMonth #HanKang #bookreview

My new blog post on WE DO NOT PART by Han Kang - a haunting, dreamlike novel on female friendship, trauma, and genocide...brimming with vivid imagery of snow. Translated by E. Yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/09/07/w... #WITMonth #HanKang #bookreview

My final Elizabeth Taylor (having already read and reviewed the posthumous Blaming), her short story collection The Devstating Boys: 1streading.wordpress.com/2025/09/06/t...

Fell into #booksky. Interesting theme for the month, seeing many recommendations of favourites. I’ll check some out on this rare rainy day #SpinsterSeptember

My mom-in-law's cat has come to stay with us for the first time. Spent the whole morning exploring the house.

My goodness, she’s a beauty.