Kate Grenville, The Lieutenant (Harper Collins, 2008)
An exploration of the possibilities and impossibilities of cross cultural communication. Set at the moment of first contact between English naval officers and aborigines in Australia (1788), this beautiful novel is at once a bildungsroman, an adventure story, and a lyrical reflection on language. The relationship that evolves between Lieutenant Daniel Rooke and the child […]
Edmund de Waal, The Hare With Amber Eyes (Chatto & Windus, 2010)
The most exquisite memoire I have ever read. Mr. de Waal, a distinguished English potter, traces his family history by exploring the movement of a collection of Japanese netsuke from late 19th century Paris, to Vienna at the Anschluss, to Tokyo, to London. The collection is first bought by Charles Ephrussi, the model for Proust’s […]