Irene Sabatini

• 9 September 2010 - I agree pretty much with this review of Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom'.

• 4 September 2010 - Smart, funny and honest!

I just had to share this. This interview makes me so much want to read Wolf Hall! Hilary Mantel
sounds so smart, funny and honest!

• 1 September 2010 - You can do a lot with very few adjectives!

I've finally read The Catcher in the Rye. Right from the first page I had a real, physical and emotional, sense of Holden Caulfield. His colourful (1950's adolescent, New York colloquial) voice brought him vividly to life and had me gripped. You can do a lot with very few adjectives!

• 15 August 2010 - My New Book of the Year

Simply brilliant- and I think my new 'book of the year': 'Burning Bright' by Ron Rash- a collection of short stories set in and around the Appalachian landscape, each one of them in its spare, elegant prose left me pondering a life. I read them greedily in one sitting, and now I want to re-read them slowly- a magnificent treat.

• 12 August 2010 - A Graham Greene moment!

'Brighton Rock', 'The End of the Affair', 'The Quiet American', 'Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party', 'The Heart of the Matter'...I'm having quite a Graham Greene moment!

• 19 July 2010 - Poet, dreamer, idealist

It's a treat when you discover a new author! Andrew Miller's 'One Morning Like A Bird' had me floating in his evocation of 1940's Japan. It is the coming of age of one Yuji Takano, poet, dreamer, idealist.

• 13 July 2010 - Summer reading list: books written by women

It's been brought to my attention that there are no books by women in Mr. King's summer reading list! Well, here are two: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (one of my favourite books which I'm going to re-read) and a book I've been meaning to read for a long time, The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. Any other suggestions?

• 3 July 2010 - That’s why I read, as widely as possible.

Words (lanyard; flyers, as an exclamation); creatures (virals, smokes, littles); places (the Time Before, the Time After) I didn't know existed, now I do, courtesy of Mr.Cronin, in The Passage, whose pages I closed today with a feeling of dread and foreboding (I cared about the characters and their fates- the book has... some really beautiful, emotionally moving language). That’s why I read, as widely as possible.

• 21 June 2010 - Wherever the story, the characters are taking you

Yipp, I've joined the bandwagon- I'm starting The Passage by Justin Cronin, all 766 pages of it. I'm told that there are vampires, creatures which I have avoided to date! I love the author's excitement when he talks about his characters and the quote from Stephen King- "The book is the boss."- which, to me, means, you have to go wherever the story, the characters are taking you, and sometimes that requires a deep breath, and courage.

• 20 June 2010 - The Fig Tree and the Wasp

Brian Chikwava has a multi-layered and wonderfully written short story in Granta (The Magazine of New Writing), in their issue 110, called The Fig Tree and the Wasp. From the springboard of iskokotsha' which was (to quote from the story) "...a craze that would, in the euphoria of a newly independent Zimbabwe, trigger the focus of motion in popular dance to snake decisively, seductively..." Chikwava brings the fabric and rhythms of pre- and post-independent Zimbabwe to light. The story is full of surprising turns. A good short story can pack quite a punch!

• 15 June 2010 - My Book of the Year, so far

It's mid year and I have to say that my Book of the Year is still 'The Unnamed' by Joshua Ferris which I read in February! Here's an interview where I particularly like what he has to say about how critics approach a second book from an author and how to 'read' a book.

• 23 May - Highly evocative sense of place and wonderful characterisation

In the past couple of months I've read: The Shadow of a Smile by Kachi A Ozumba, Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste and In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut- all of which have a highly evocative sense of place and wonderful characterisation. The novel I'm working on now takes place in three countries and the challenge is always how to create a strong sense of place for the reader without drowning them in details.

• 18 March 2010 - Novels that gave me so much pause for thought

It's a long time since a novel gave me so much pause for thought- The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris is quite possibly my book of the year. And also a story that continues to stay with me long after I read it, Ghosts, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck.

• 22 February 2010 - Books Highly recommended by one of my favourite authors

I’m currently reading One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakarumi, which comes highly recommended by one of my favourite authors, Jhumpa Lahari, whose debut short story collection, Interpreters of Maladies was exquisite, and so too is her 2008 collection Unaccustomed Earth.

• 8 February 2010 - Books which continue to haunt me

Two books I read many years ago which continue to haunt me: Rise the Euphrates by Carol Edgarian and Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. The former - the story of the 1915 massacre of Armenians, seen through the eyes of a young girl called Seta growing up in Connecticut - begins with the most beautifully eloquent line: “These are the things that were not lost“.

• 28 January 2010 - The Telling of Stories

One of my favourite books is The Blue Taxi by N.S. Koenings (Little, Brown and Company, 2006). I read this novel which is set in an East African country when it was first published. I was struck by the richness of the characterisation and of the beautiful evocation of a time and place. The blurb at the back sums up the story very well: "...writing with a delight in language that is utterly her own, N.S. Koenings depicts an African city brimming with life and full of contradictions, just like the people who inhabit it. The Blue Taxi is a dazzling tale of love, courage, and what happens when lives and fates collide."

This story- its heart being the love affair between a married Belgian woman, Sarie Turner, and a local widower, Majid Ghulam Jeevanjee- showed me that it is possible for an outsider, the author, to capture the essence of a person and persons of a different culture (to their own) in a way that rings true and vibrates with authenticity. I think of this as a kind of grace- to be able to inhabit the body and soul of the other, to make them breathe- the magic of what good fiction can do....