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radzpandit.bsky.social
Radz Pandit
@radzpandit.bsky.social
1.3K followers 670 following 1.4K posts
Avid reader, book reviewer & amateur book photographer. I write about books on my blog Radhika’s Reading Retreat. Love art and travel too.

Website: https://readersretreat2017.wordpress.com

Also on: linktr.ee/radzpandit
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radzpandit.bsky.social
Radz Pandit @radzpandit.bsky.social · Dec 17
These are MY BEST BOOKS OF 2024 featuring Lars Gustafsson, Barbara Comyns, Celia Fremlin, Mathias Enard, Barbara Pym and more. New blog post here:
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2024/12/17/m...
A stack of the best books I read in 2024.
Reposted by Radz Pandit
radzpandit.bsky.social
"There are two men in the world
who always cross my path, one is the man I love,
the other man loves me."

- Tove Ditlevsen
The Eternal Three There are two men in the world who always cross my path, one is the man I love, the other man loves me. One man visits each night in a dream that lives in my shadowed soul, the other waits outside my door, I will never let him in. One man brought a rush of spring that all too soon blew over, the other offered his whole life and came away with nothing. One man surges to my blood's song of passion pure and free, the other blends with the everyday that smothers all hopes and dreams. All women are caught between these two, in love and truly loved - but perhaps once every hundred years, the two become the same.
November 24, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
rid9way.bsky.social
Contemporary Danish fiction is very weird and very wonderful. Solvej Balle, Harald Voetmann, Olga Ravn. My head is spinning.

This is fantastic. "Someone must take the punishment, when punishment is handed down."

Beautifully translated by Martin Aitken.
The Penguin Viking UK edition of Olga Ravn's novel The Wax Child
November 25, 2025 at 10:34 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"There are two men in the world
who always cross my path, one is the man I love,
the other man loves me."

- Tove Ditlevsen
The Eternal Three There are two men in the world who always cross my path, one is the man I love, the other man loves me. One man visits each night in a dream that lives in my shadowed soul, the other waits outside my door, I will never let him in. One man brought a rush of spring that all too soon blew over, the other offered his whole life and came away with nothing. One man surges to my blood's song of passion pure and free, the other blends with the everyday that smothers all hopes and dreams. All women are caught between these two, in love and truly loved - but perhaps once every hundred years, the two become the same.
November 24, 2025 at 5:29 PM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"Don't you see? I want you to understand:
Anything entrusted to me slips from my hand,
and so, for the sake of our happiness, my dear,
do not care for me so much, you hear!"
THERE LIVES A YOUNG GIRL IN ME WHO WILL NOT DIE by Tove Ditlevsen. Translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell. Penguin Classics.
November 24, 2025 at 5:20 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"I am seized and swept across turbulent waters of dread..."

- "Anxiety" from THERE LIVES A YOUNG GIRL IN ME WHO WILL NOT DIE by Tove Ditlevsen.
Anxiety I wake up at night and switch on the lamp, why I haven't a clue, there is the basin, there is the wall, and there is the blanket, still blue. But I am seized and swept across turbulent waters of dread, for something ice-cold and fated has crept inside my head. Come, the light is on and I'm awake, step out of the shadows you haunt and tell me, gruesome, almighty power, what is it exactly you want? Have you not any compassion? See, I'm too tired to fight this unsoothable fear that washes over me night after night. Are there seven seas of anxiety where every single drop is bound to drip its poison into my mind, until love and hope cannot be found? Are there oceans of anxiety where every single wave is destined to crash into me, bringing horrors I alone must brave?
November 23, 2025 at 7:50 PM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"And it's only now that she understands what a threat Martta's and Väinö's strange and silly love must have been to Aunt Sirkka, a woman who had twice been in love and twice been rejected - and to anyone who was afraid their inconsolable loneliness would be exposed."
LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR by Pirkko Saisio. Translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg. Penguin International Writers series.
November 23, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
sineadgleeson.bsky.social
Re-reading Amongst Women for work and had forgotten how terrifying Moran is. One of the sourest patriarchs in Irish literature. It’s uncomfortable reading; constantly feeling uneasy for the characters, a mark of how masterful McGahern is. Very glad that Ireland is long gone. @faberbooks.bsky.social
November 23, 2025 at 12:05 PM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"A hollow melancholy enveloped her with an unmerciful darkness she could not escape."

I loved Tove Ditlevsen's bleak but powerful THE TROUBLE WITH HAPPINESS; intense short stories that explore love, marriage, family, & mental illness.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2022/07/07/t...
#BlogArchives
THE TROUBLE WITH HAPPINESS AND OTHER STORIES by Tove Ditlevsen. Translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman. Penguin Classics.
November 23, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
roughghosts.bsky.social
Here at the end of the world: The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton @biblioasis.bsky.social
roughghosts.com/2025/11/23/h...
Here at the end of the world: The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson
The boy sticks his head all the way out and his black hair whitens, the ground lies everywhere beneath a thick layer of the sorrow of angels, no grazing either in pasture or on beach, all the lives…
roughghosts.com
November 23, 2025 at 9:00 AM
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grantrintoul.bsky.social
Bought this at Edinburgh Book Festival and then forgot to read it! Another masterful collection of stories - my only complaint about Schweblin is that I wish she would write more.
November 23, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
grantrintoul.bsky.social
Having written outstanding science fiction and autobiographical fiction, Olga Ravn turns her hand to historical fiction with the most wondrous narrative voice.
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
November 22, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
ravenbooks.bsky.social
If you enjoyed The Summer Book, might I recommend
November 22, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
radzpandit.bsky.social
On my blog today, a new post on Olga Ravn's dark and haunting novella of witchcraft and witch hunts, THE WAX CHILD. Translated by Martin Aitken.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/t...
THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. Published by New Directions.
November 22, 2025 at 8:43 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
It just so happens that I've read some excellent Danish literature this year.
Three books on a bed: 1) The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken 2) Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof, translated by Caroline Waight 3) On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J Haveland
November 22, 2025 at 12:42 PM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"Grandpa sits down at the table, takes a bottle of Karhu Vodka out of his briefcase, and puts it on the floor.

"Tell her to get me a glass out of the cupboard," Grandpa instructs me.

"Get him a glass out of the cupboard," I tell Grandma, and Grandma says:

"Tell him to get it himself.""
LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR by Pirkko Saisio. Translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg. Penguin International Writers series.
November 22, 2025 at 9:37 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
On my blog today, a new post on Olga Ravn's dark and haunting novella of witchcraft and witch hunts, THE WAX CHILD. Translated by Martin Aitken.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/t...
THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. Published by New Directions.
November 22, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
afteroctavian.bsky.social
What starts as a village cozy ala Miss Read morphs into something midnight black and then takes an abrupt turn into something so moving I was crying my eyes out in the middle of the night (cat was not impressed). Wonderful, masterfully designed book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
November 22, 2025 at 5:30 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
radzpandit.bsky.social
My new blog post on THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn - a dark, haunting novella of witchcraft and witch hunts, power and misogyny, and how women are scapegoated. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/t...
The Wax Child – Olga Ravn (tr. Martin Aitken)
Olga Ravn created a stir with the publication of her novella, The Employees, in 2020, which was subsequently shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. I’ve yet to read it, but the latest…
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:38 PM
radzpandit.bsky.social
My new blog post on THE WAX CHILD by Olga Ravn - a dark, haunting novella of witchcraft and witch hunts, power and misogyny, and how women are scapegoated. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/t...
The Wax Child – Olga Ravn (tr. Martin Aitken)
Olga Ravn created a stir with the publication of her novella, The Employees, in 2020, which was subsequently shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. I’ve yet to read it, but the latest…
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
msjeanrhys.bsky.social
I was always happy in the morning, not always in the afternoon and never after sunset.
November 21, 2025 at 6:24 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"During the day she longs for the deep blue of her dreams, but she only finds pale fragments: a fair summer sky; a field of bird's-eye; a mop of cornflowers deep in a ditch; the window frames painted blue when Porkkala peninsula was leased to the Soviet Union."
LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR by Pirkko Saisio. Translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg. European International Writers series.
November 20, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
claramay.bsky.social
It’s a good one isn‘t it? Perfectly captures the balance between humour and sadness (as ever). I only got around to reading The Lowlife this year: hope your excellent review encourages more listeners/readers to try it!
November 20, 2025 at 9:45 AM
radzpandit.bsky.social
"...she's jealous of her mother and her dreamy contentment, the casual femininity from which she knows she will forever be excluded."
LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR by Pirkko Saisio. Translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg. Penguin International Writers series.
November 20, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
sarahmatthews.bsky.social
I’ve written a few thoughts on The Artist by Lucy Steeds, 2025, one of the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlisted titles that appealed to me this year 💙📚 #BookSky #BookReview #audiobook https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/89ab9704-f5ff-443b-b401-0de4122b4dc5
Review by sarahmatthews - The Artist
The Artist by Lucy Steeds Read on audioNarrator: Tanya ReynoldsJohn Murray Press Pub. 2025, 2...
app.thestorygraph.com
November 20, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Radz Pandit
claramay.bsky.social
Discovered, rediscovered and enjoyed by many @backlisted.bsky.social listeners, The Lowlife is a tremendous read:
November 20, 2025 at 8:13 AM