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July: Germany, South Korea and England

Read: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (Germany), The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher by Ahn Do-hyun (South Korea), Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (England) ‘A novel pullulating with a kind of anti-life’ - this is how the blurb advertises The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass and this was my mum’s birthday present to me - a book, it goes on to say, filled with ‘horribly memorable images.’ And this from a woman so squeamish that she recently went to watch the latest Shaun the Sheep movie, Farmageddon, knowing that it would be a safe option with only ‘mild’ violence. Admittedly, IMDB records one moment of sex and nudity, one moment of violence and gore, one profanity and three frightening and intense scenes, but I’m not sure the comical moment when a farmer and some sheep push the hapless detectives off a cliff are quite in the same level as the grimness served by Grass, but my mum says that she can handle things in books that she could never handle on screen whereas I feel that it works the othe...
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June: Nigeria, Wales and Russia

Read: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Nigeria), I Bought a Mountain by Thomas Firbank (Wales), The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky On May, 25th 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin. George was an African-American 46 year-old man. He’d suffered doubly at the hands of the Coronavirus, first contracting it before recovering, but also losing his job as a security guard. He was a father of five and grandfather of two. These are simple details that tell very little of the story of the man who breathed his last gasped breath under the crushing weight of Derek Chauvin’s knee. I forced myself to sit and watch the footage of his death. It was something I didn’t want to see, but did want to face the reality of. We must face this reality. George Floyd’s death is not the first racist murder committed by a white policeman. I have heard of others, but like many people, this incident has made me stop and think for longer and my white privilege is at the heart o...
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May: Northern Ireland and United States of America

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Read: Milkman by Anna Burns (Northern Ireland), Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang (United States of America) During this period of Coronavirus lockdown, the sound of the doorbell is unnerving. Admittedly, 80% of the time, it is because someone (ususally me) has plugged the doorbell plug back into the wall after charging a phone/tablet/laptop, but those other 20% of times create an odd confusing feeling within me. Something from the past has come back into my life, a remnant of pre-lockdown life when the doorbell provided potential social interaction or more likely, social interaction for my children who were being invited out to play football for the seventh time that day. A few days ago, I emerged from my house in this fog of confusion to find my friend Kenny and his children in a lorry, their belongings stacked in the back ready to be transported to Belfast. Kenny’s wife Nicola was following in a car and they were heading home after twelve years in Brighton. We said goodbye, st...
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April 2020: Italy, France and Poland

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Read: If This is a Man by Primo Levi (Italy),  Germinal  by Emile Zola (France),  Madame by Antoni Libera (Poland) Books find their way into my consciousness, hand and eye-line in all sorts of different ways and the journey of those books from the writer’s pen to their being absorbed by me is both interesting and mysterious. I think that the most common reason I read a book is because of a recommendation, but often one recommendation is like a tree trunk with branches, leaves and fruit spiralling from the trunk in all directions, whether it be other books by the same author, references to other books within the book I’m reading or other books with the same theme. This process of reading books from every nation in the world is one that is all about recommendation, largely from people that have never recommended me a book before, but this month I went back to my friend, Ed, who has recommended a handful of books to me in the past.  It was the weekend before ...
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March 2020: Brazil and the Netherlands

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Read: The Eternal Son by Cristovao Tezza (Brazil), A Letter for the King  by Tonke Dragt (Netherlands) When I hear the word ‘Brazil,’ images of beautiful, cavaliering, elegant football spring immediately to mind. Their yellow shirts mirror the sunny joy that their football brings me and whenever a World Cup comes around, their fixtures are ones that I make sure I’m on the sofa for and however dull the actual match, I never lose the anticipation of seeing them again. When I asked my Brazilian friend, Lynn, for a book recommendation, subconsciously, I think I expected the novel to mirror the excitement of its football team as if Brazilian life is perpetually exciting and joyous. Cristavao Tezza’s autobiographical novel had nothing of the atmosphere that I have just described, but it is an important lesson to keep learning: to not live as if nonsensical stereotypes are actually all there is. I’ve made the mistake before. At university, I took a course in African litera...
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February 2020: South Africa, Czech Republic and Hungary

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Read: Jock of the Bushveld by J Percy FitzPatrick (South Africa), The Good Soldier, Sveyk by Jaroslav Hasek (Czech Republic), Embers by Sandor Marai (Hungary) As 2019 drew to a close, I took a walk with my family along Hove seafront. It’s an annual post-Christmas get-together of my siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and brothers-in-law. There’s a big old crowd of us walking into the bitter wind towards the rusty remnants of the West Pier. The appetite for walking varies hugely and usually, after a mere half mile or so, the call to turn round and head for the pub is given and we about-turn and shuffle back to our starting position. As I walked, I chatted with my brother-in-law, Tim, about my reading challenge and Jock of the Bushveld - book number three of my international challenge. He chose a book for me from his childhood, one he reckoned he’d read in 1995. I picture him sitting in his bedroom with a battered paperback while up in Johannesburg, Nelson ...
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