This important work of Austrian literature has first been published in 1974 and is on many school reading lists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland today. The English translation, however, seems to have seen only one edition before going out of print again – unlike its French and Spansh translations.

The story basically is the fictionalised account of the author's own horrible childhood on a mountain farm in the Alpine regions of Salzburg during the 1950s. In shocking detail he evokes his love-less, even cruel biological father, who took him into house and family much rather as a free farm hand than as his son. His has to work hard for his living and he is only allowed to go to school when it suits the father or the teacher starts pestering. Beatings and abuse are an almost daily occurence and weigh terribly on the sensitive as well as intelligent boy who as he grows older begins to consider suicide as an acceptable way out. But then he turns into a teenager. Seeing that is stronger than his father he forces open his way into a better life.

If you'd like to learn more about this sad and shattering book that is definitely worth reading, be invited to click here to read my long review on Edith's Miscellany.

When I picked this slim novel by Jean Rhys, I thought that it would take me to England because she is an English writer, but as it turned out already on the first page I was completely mistaken!

Good Morning, Midnight is the sad (according to many: depressing, even repulsive) story of an Englishwoman called Sasha living in Paris. She has no job, no future and she lost her baby. Altogether the world seems to have nothing to offer to her but misery. She feels terribly lonely and hopeless. In other words she belongs to the helpless and resigned who slip into depression and drown their pain in alcohol – like the author did. In fact, there's very much of Jean Rhys herself shining though the lines.

It's true that Good Morning, Midnight isn't a cheerful read, but the novel is excellently written, deep and thought-provoking which is why I liked it. I talked about the book at length on my main book blog Edith's Miscellany and I invite you to read my review there. To go directly to the post click here: I hope that you'll like what you'll find!

Cuba in the 1950s was such a strategically important place that espionage bloomed there and in the satirical spy novel Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene the general desire for first-hand intelligence has strange offshoots.

One day Jim Wormold, the agent of Phastkleaners vacuum cleaners in Havana, is approached by an Englishman who recruits him as a spy for the British Secret Service M.I.6. He can use the money and thus begins to play his part in the Cold War game. In London nobody notices that his reports are all made up and because he is such a success he’s sent support. From there the fake reports develop dynamics of their own pushing Wormold into the dangerous (and in several cases fatal) net of real espionage and towards his attractive as well as understanding secretary Beatrice.

For the full review please click here to go directly to my post on Edith’s Miscellany.

Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene 

Midwinter by John Buchan is a historical spy novel and it's a good book.

The story is set in the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie, more precisely during the Jacobite rising of 1745/46, and its protagonist is a captain of the Scottish army travelling through England to join his Prince in Scotland. On his way he realises that his assumed friends are actually his foes trying to get rid of him with all means because they betray the Jacobite cause. He is helped by a not yet famous Samuel Johnson and a mysterious man called "Midwinter" rescues him ever again from almost certain death.

I wrote a long review of the novel on my main book blog which you can find following the link to Edith's Miscellany.

This book from the pen of an almost forgotten woman writer from Wales was first published in 1928.

Winter Sonata is no novel with a plot full of action or romance, but only a quiet story imitating the form of a musical sonata. Its protagonist is a shy young telegraph clerk who has just moved to a small English village where he hopes that the winter will be less detrimental to his health and where he frequents the house of the middle-class Neran sisters because he can play the cello and they like to listen. Nonetheless, class distinction and gender roles ask their toll just like the lack of sympathy and understanding for the people closest to the Neran family. 

Find my detailed review of it on my main book blog Edith's Miscellany.