Magic, Eliot, cherries, fashion, Mozart, Flaubert, whale.

Recent and upcoming books

This is a list of books that I have enjoyed recently, and some would be additions to my most enjoyed books of 2023 (Eliot, Flaubert, Whale, magic and maybe others). Several of these books got less attention than they deserve. All of them are worth reading. Fiction in translation first, then non-fiction.

1. Whale. A Korean novel that mixes historical fiction, fabulism, myth, fable, and chronicle, framed with a prison story, to tell the story of post-Korean war Korea from the perspective of a small number of characters in a small town. Like a fairytale written for modern times. Less than four-hundred pages, I read it in twenty-four hours. Published twenty years ago in Korea, but only in English this year. Here is a short interview with the author and translator.

2. Days in the Morisaki Bookshop. A recent translation of Japanese book, which is now a global bestseller. A novella about a young woman who goes to live in her uncle’s bookshop, this is ultimately a sentimental romance that has mass appeal because of its easy tone, but a quick book with some lovely scenes and depiction of bookshop culture. The right length for such a story. Middling as you would expect from this sort of book.

3. The Time of Cherries. Forthcoming from Daunt Books, this is a Catalan classic, about the intergenerational clashes of 1970s Barcelona, following the story of a young woman who moves back to Spain. I am reading it in short bursts, as it is written in a disparate, episodic style, and I never regret picking it up (or putting it down). The scene with the gynecologist is excellent and startling, as it is the portrait of the aunt. Short, vivid, entertaining. Astonishing it has not been translated into English before. Kudos to Daunt. The second half gets better and better.

4. Vladivostok Circus. I am not a fan of Elisha Shua Dupin’s work, as such, but her books are interesting, and she takes the plain, understated style quite far. This is written on a bigger scope than her previous novel and shows that there may be more interesting work to come.

5. The Housekeeper and the Professor. Yoko Ogawa’s novella is better named in Japanese, where the title means The Professor’s Beloved Equation. The lonely professor has a seventy minute short-term memory and the housekeeper has a son who becomes his friend. A charming book with a nice twist. Not recent (2003) but new to me and I’m glad I read it.

6. The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life. As a philosopher specialising the nineteenth century and Spinoza, and with a deep sympathy for and understanding of fiction, Claire Carlisle is George Eliot’s ideal biographer. Unlike some critics, she truly understands the masterpiece that is The Mill on the Floss. Well paced, full of good detail, enjoyable for Eliot fans and novices alike, The Marriage Question provides plenty of examples of the mid-Victorian gossipy attitudes towards other people’s romantic lives as well as the philosophical basis of Eliot’s novels. Some questions can only be understood biographically, and I hope Carlisle writes more literary lives. It’s less than three hundred pages of narrative, but you will feel like Carlisle got much more than that into the pages.

7. The Oxford History of Witchcraft and Magic ed. by Owen Davis. Exactly the book you want it to be, full of interesting information, recently released. Pairs well with with 2022’s Penguin Book of Dragons.

8. The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, ed. by Francis Steegmuller. I am bingeing on this wonderful edition, new from NYRB books (Steegmuller originally published in the 1970s and 1980s), and shall have a lot more to say quite soon. Some of Flaubert’s best work, though that idea would have repulsed him no doubt. Unmissable.

9. Anna. Amy Odell’s journalistic biography of Anna Wintour is full of good revealing details—as Samuel Johnson advised, Odell talked to many people who worked for Wintour, which gives the books much of its colour. It makes me anticipate and wonder if anyone will ever be able to tell a fuller story. I don’t know if I can claim Wintour as a late bloomer, but her early career is much more stop-start and uneven than I realised. I would have liked to hear more about the gaps. Like many late bloomers, she took her own path, uncompromisingly, and got the rewards. Family money made this much easier for her, but she is remarkably talented and determined. I haven’t finished it yet, but want to.

10. Mozart in Italy. Jane Glover’s new book is pleasingly short and can be read quickly. Often too much catalogue-type information for a casual reader, but overall very interesting and has lots of insight about how Mozart became Mozart. I gulped it. Some thoughts here.