Amanda's comments (member since Apr 27, 2009)

Amanda's comments from the Read a book from each country group.

I have recently started a delightful book about Kafka, which discusses him, his myth and the weird state of being a minority as a German-speaking Jew in Prague while the Austro-Hungarian Empire started to dissolve in the first world war. It is, alas, written by a English or Welsh man who - aha - speaks and reads German.

also, it is quite recent : Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life by James Hawe (2008)

surreal and bizarre Japanese writing = Kobo Abe's Kangaroo Notebook, which I really liked.

excellent contemporary novella - Emmanuelle Bernheim's Sa femme: it involves the idea of infidelity in a not-often suggested, psychological way.

I've read quite a few Atwood and my favorite is Alias Grace.

But I also love Carol Shields. Some of her books are a bit dated, which I still enjoy (ie - Happenstance Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition and Swann). The one I am most likely to recommend generally is Unless A Novel.

Madeleine St. John wrote some lovely books - The Women in Black, A Pure Clear Light, A Stairway to Paradise, The Essence of the Thing A Novel

Excellent Italian author - Cesare Pavese. I liked his novella Among Women Only

Barbarossa wrote: "On that note anyone know the best translation into English of Dante?"

I am especially partial to the Hollanders's translation of Dante - they are a couple, I believe, and they seem to balance each other in terms of the poetry and the meaning of his work. the husband is an ivy league Dante scholar and the wife is a poet. I think they do quite well, having read several other translators's works - I do also like John Ciardi.