Reviews by Kenny_Shovel

A book of literally two parts. The first, cute and funny stories of a Cuban immigrants job as a doorman in an expensive New York apartment block. In the second part, the author tries to be magical and clever, but ends up ruining the book. Ho hum.

K-S

A collection of plays, short stories and essays by Capek, brought together as an introduction to his work. The plays in particular suffer from very stiff dialogue, which may be due to the translations. The introduction even mentions that some of the translation work is poor! A shame, as Capek’s short stories can be wonderful.

K-S

Andreyev was a famous writer in his day, but out of favour now. Hard to see from this why he was popular in the first place.

K-S

Short story on the fallout from a married man’s affair, written in the form of three letters, one from each of the people involved. Understated and very Japanese.

K-S

Human attempts to exploit a newly discovered race of giant lizards rebounds on them. It was intended as a satire on events at the time it was written - 1938 - but still hits the mark today. One of the best satires of the last century, and a plot driven story with little charactisation to boot. What will the book snobs say!

K-S

Hidden soviet gem uses satire to make its point in part one, before losing it's way somewhat in the second part. A bit like Dead Souls, but not as good.

K-S

Kierkegarrd manages to take a 200 page philosophical debate on the nature of Christian belief and suck all the joy out of it. For the committed only.

K-S

As close as Kadare will get to comedy. Researchers from an American university visit Albania to record the dieing tradition of lyrical story telling, and end up playing a stange game of "Chinese Whispers". Yeah, that old story-line again.

K-S

A collection of short stories that reminds you of all the other short story collections he wrote. Still good, still readable, still wouldn't let him in the house.

K-S

A sequel of sorts to "Things Fall Apart" as the grandson of that books main character returns from university life in Britain to a Nigeria edging closer to Independence.

K-S