Hello! 📚 I'm using this blog to collect my book reviews. I enjoy writing down some of my thoughts after I finish a book, mostly for my own memory, but ho...
This is available is many languages, except for English it seems! The title means 'the cat without a name'. I've been learning Japanese for a while, but actually reading something is different than learning words and grammar separately. Because I'd love to be able to read fluently one day (in the far, far future), I'm trying to push myself a little to practice more with reading material. Most…
This book is edited by Hans Höller, and translated from German into English by Mike Mitchell. This is a non-fiction book with maybe a bit of a misleading title. It consists of three parts. The first is a war diary, the second is a collection of letters and the third is an afterword. The diary is written by Ingeborg Bachmann, who lived on to become a famous Austrian author. I'd never heard of her…
A book only available in Dutch, that will most likely not be translated any time soon. The title means 'For Flanders, the people and the Führer'. It's a study about the motives and worldview of people who collaborated during WWII in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium). I read this because living in Flanders, it's impossible to fully avoid right-wing extremist families praising…
I read the Dutch translation, translated from the French by Eveline van Hemert. Available in English with the same title, translated by Ros Schwartz. Girlhood is rough, and being a woman is not much easier. Don't express this, don't do that, don't show this, don't pursue that. For some it's a lifetime of pushing down genuine personality traits and interests in favor of becoming what society deems…
A nuclear war wipes out all inhabitants of the northern hemisphere and leaves behind a radioactive cloud that's slowly making its way over to the southern hemisphere. We follow a few people in Australia, waiting for the cloud to reach them, not quite sure whether their lives will truly be ending. I loved my time with this book. I believe On the Beach walked so Jacqueline Harpman's I Who Have Never…
This is a big photography book. It collects the pictures Walbers took during several trips to Mongolia in 2014-2018, focusing on the nomad population. There are only a few pages of bilingual text (English and Japanese) that offer some background information. Naturally there are many beautiful pictures in here, lots of detailed portraits and photographs of daily life. My favorites are the dual-page…
Translated from Korean into English by Sophie Bowman. This book isn't out yet, but will be in August 2026. I received a digital ARC for it (thanks!). A Lovecraftian horror novella that takes place in a fishing town under quarantine. Circumstances in the past have caused the protagonist to be stuck there, coping with daily life in maybe not the best ways. I'm always interested in stories that deal…
Translated from Hungarian into English by Paul Olchváry. I read the Dutch edition, translated by Frans van Nes. This is a Holocaust testimonial from a journalist who survived three different concentration camps, originally published in 1950. I'm especially interested in early reports, when the general denial of what had happened was still quite strong. This title didn't receive any translations…
Translated from Japanese into English by Quof, with illustrations by You Shiina. This is a post about four books, the second arc in the Ascendance of a Bookworm light novel series. They're book 4-7 in the series and won't make much sense if you haven't read the first arc. At this point, the series has fully won me over and I'll probably read all volumes at some point. I mostly read these four…
Translated from Czech into English by Alex Zucker. This book isn't out yet, but will be in September 2026. I received a digital ARC for it (thanks!). This novel follows a female author right after a recent book release. She’s ageing past 50 and her relationship with her works and as a public figure are changing. One day her two teenage children find her journals and snoop through them, finding out…