29th May Newsletter
What’s On At Veranda
Hot, hot, hot.
Book, book, book.
Park, park, park.
You know where to find us! See you soon 😎
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Veranda Book Club
The Modern-Day Med
- The Deserters by Mathias Énard (tr. Charlotte Mandell). A soldier fleeing a nameless war, emerges from the Mediterranean scrubland, exhausted and seeking refuge. A chance encounter forces him to rethink his journey and the price he puts on a life.
- Blue, White, Green by Maïssa Bey (tr. Erin Twohig). Three decades of Algerian history seen through the eyes of two children – coming-of-age against the tumultuous changes of this North African nation.
- The Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (tr. Alison Anderson). 72 men arrive in the Sicilian countryside – they are ‘migrants’, ‘refugees’ or ‘ragazzi’, depending on who you ask, as everyone they meet is forced to reflect on what it means to meet people they know nothing about.
- The Palace on the Higher Hill by Karim Kattan (tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman). Upon the death of his aunt, Faysal leaves his life in Europe to reclaim his family home in a Palestinian village. Set against a backdrop of violence, this is a beautiful, angry and haunting novel.
- My Fourth Time, We Drowned by Sally Hayden. Multiple prize-winning investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa, the people who make unimaginable choices, and the policy-makers who wish they’d just disappear.
Now Booking
Announcing more June events
Our Recommended Reads
Kin by Tayari Jones
Alison is enthusiastically recommending Tayari Jones’ new novel Kin this week, having been completely enraptured by it. It tells the story of two motherless girls – ‘cradle friends’ – raised in small-town Louisiana, as they navigate life against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement. Jones is a supremely gifted storyteller, and her prose is so alive, it’s practically jumping off the page. The female friendship at the heart of the novel is complex and credible, with a supporting cast of subtly-drawn characters. A great book to add to your summer reading stack.
The Pilgrimage by John Broderick
Curtain twitching, salacious gossip and simmering sexual tension. Leo has been reading The Pilgrimage by John Broderick this week. Set in small-town 1950s Ireland, wealthy couple Julia and Michael Glynn are upstanding members of the local community, widely respected and resented in equal measure. When anonymous letters start to arrive at their home, threatening to expose Julia’s secret affair, their lives are completely upended. Julia is forced to confront her demons and decide whether or not she can save her marriage – and whether she wants to. Banned in Ireland on it s publication in 1961, this is a tense and propulsive ‘one-gulp’ read, published by the inimitable Pushkin Press and with an excellent new foreword by Colm Tóibín.
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