Book review: How to Mars

Posted on April 21, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

How to Mars,
by David Ebenbach
Tachyon Publications
To be published on 5/25/2021
256 pages
Science Fiction
Goodreads

Buy the book

Not all novels about Mars are born equal. I thoroughly enjoyed The Martian Chronicles. Ray Bradbury managed to awe me, even though the short story genre is not my favorite. More recently, Andy Weir both informed and entertained me with The Martian. So reading the synopsis of How To Mars, I thought I was going to enjoy my third trip to Mars. Things didn’t turn out as expected. Click to continue reading

Book review: The Black Lizard / Beast in the Shadows

Posted on April 9, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

The Black Lizard / Beast in the Shadows
by Edogawa Rampo
translated from the Japanese
by Ian Hughes
January 2006
280 pages
The stories were first published
respectively in 1934 and 1928
Mystery/Japanese literature
Goodreads

Read for The Classics Club

I recently discovered the Japanese Mystery Book Club on Discord (check here). We were supposed to read The Black Lizard and Beast in the Shadows a few weeks ago, and share on Instagram Stories.
That was a total debacle for me, I still don’t understand how you can share things on Stories (instead of in the Feed), as I can’t seem to be able to do a search with hashtags in Stories). So I have no idea what the others thought about the book.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I’m glad it gave me the opportunity to discover a classic Japanese author I didn’t know yet. And a really great one!

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Book review: Encre sympathique

Posted on February 22, 2021 by WordsAndPeace

Encre sympathique
by Patrick Modiano
2/4/2019
144 pages
Literary fiction
Goodreads

It was translated in English (Invisible Ink) in 2020 by Mark Polizzotti

I fell in love with Modiano‘s writing back in 1978 with Rue des boutiques obscures (Prix Goncourt – translated as Missing Person). Since then, after reading several more of his novels, I got sometimes tired of his style, with so many characteristics common to all his novels.
Still, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2014. And some of his later novels had even sometimes elements closer to the mystery genre, like Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier, translated as So you don’t get lost in the neighborhood).
A French student of mine managed to convince me to try Encre sympathique.

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