BOTM: A. Kurkov, Death and the penguin (1996)
K. Addison, The Goblin Emperor (2014)
M. Beard, Women and Power (2018)
D. Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations (1998)
U.K. Le Guin, The other wind (2001)
J. McMorland-Hunter and S. Dunster, Quinces: Growing and Cooking (2014)
M Maeterlinck, The life of the bee (1901)
M Maeterlinck, The life of the bee (1901)
C. Mieville, The last days of new Paris (2016)
Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (2012)
Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (2012)
Non-fiction was poor this month. I am craving a general economic history that has a clear thesis without being overly reliant on it. Landes wasn't it. Fiction was much stronger, though I doubt any of them will be troubling me for book of the year. The Goblin Emperor was engrossing, and I'm glad I read it by mistake, but suffered from that regular annoying trope of innocents cleaning out government etc. No such idealism in Kurkov's bizarre and macabre novel about post Soviet Ukraine - with a penguin. It's inventive, and slightly mad, but was clever and great fun. It has a sequel, which based on this review, I won't read. You should read this.
