In Paradise

It’s pretty hard to say anything new about the Holocaust, and thankfully, this novel doesn’t attempt to. Matthiessen attended several meditation retreats at Auschwitz, and in what became his last book, he gives a fictionalised account of one such event. He avoids any attempt at answers, and the result is both reflective and confronting, though not without some unnecessary plot elements.

All the Birds, Singing

I almost gave up a third of the way in, just because this book is so unrelentingly grim. I’m glad I stuck with it, and could appreciate how its bleakness was a necessary counterpoint to the gradual thawing of the protagonist. Not for the faint-hearted – there’s a reason the narrator’s so traumatized and paranoid – but will reward perseverance.

A Delicate Truth

If you like your espionage old-school and British, a new Le Carre release is like a little gift from the universe, a fixed point in a world of entropy and decay. Whispers of treason in the corridors of power, if you care for that kind of thing. Which I do. I could wish this one had a more decisive ending, though.