GEMMA BOVERY *** The super-talented Fabrice Luchini is back in yet another (remember his excellent Alceste à bicyclette?) literary reference, this time to Flaubert’s Madame Bovery. It’s a moment of pure joy, as the stylish French director Anne Fontaine takes us to a charming village in Normandy to meet this modern version of Bovery. Portrayed […]
Capitaine Thomas Sankara
CAPITAINE THOMAS SANKARA **** This important documentary should not be missed. Swiss director Christophe Cupelin takes us back to the mid-1980s when Thomas Sankara, a courageous leader in Africa, decided to lead his impoverished country of Burkina Faso to productive independence and away from the usual colonial acquiescence to the wealthy and powerful West. In […]
US-Swiss relations – doomed to repeat history?
Book review: Switzerland: A democracy under pressure By Stefanie Frey et al. Verlag Merker im Effingerhof, CHF 59.00 Swiss–United States relations have been strained in recent years by disagreements on several issues, most recently banking secrecy, security and privacy issues. Does the US have good reason to criticize Switzerland, or do US politicians not understand […]
Payot’s best sellers of the week
The Giver is an American children’s novel by Lois Lowry. It won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 10 million copies. It has recently been released as a film and the book re-launched. Rank Title Author Published By Genre 1 Adultery Coelho, Paulo Random House Fiction Hard Cover 2 The Fault in […]
Le Livre sur les Quais has record attendance
MORGES Le livre sur les quais bookfair in Morges had a record breaking year. Over 40,000 people came to this annual literary festival, but this year more people participated in discussions, interviews, readings and film screenings; all the literary cruises were full; and more than 25,000 books were sold, far more than in previous years. […]
Douglas Kennedy interviewed at GEMS in Switzerland
Douglas Kennedy is the bestselling author of 14 books, three of which have been adapted to film. Last week Robyn Goss interviewed him at GEMS World Academy, where he was speaking at the inauguration of the Discovery World Library and World Language Learning Centre prior to attending the Morges Book Festival. RG: Your books are […]
Payot’s best sellers of the week
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is staying firmly on top of Payot’s top 10 this week. A new entry is Personal, the nineteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. Released this week by publisher, Doubleday Bantam, it has already jumped to fourth position in the local best seller’s […]
Payot’s best setters of the week
At number four in the top 10 is “The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden”. Whole gangs of critics and reviewers are claiming that this book is as delightfully wry and witty as his bestselling debut, “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”. It is a tale of how one woman’s […]
Payot’s best sellers of the week
Adultery is the sixteenth major book by international best-selling Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho. It touches on the theme of adultery. The English edition was published by Knopf this week. The story centres on a woman in her thirties who begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. Publicly, she has a perfect life: […]
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Haruki Murakami
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年) is the thirteenth novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Published in April 2013 in Japan, it is a publishing sensation selling one million copies in one month.
The story is about Tsukuru Tazaki. In high school, his four best friends all had a colour as part of their surnames, leaving him the “colourless” one of their group. But his life is derailed in 1995 when his friends abruptly cut all ties to him. The never-explained ostracism leaves him suicidal and when his only college friend vanishes the next semester, he feels “fated to always be alone”.
Now at 36, Tsukuru is spurred by his new girlfriend to come face-to-face with the past and find out why his friends rejected him. He visits them one by one…
