Welcome to Tony’s Reading List, a place where I pretend to know a lot more about literature than I actually do!
Tony? That’s me, a forty-something Englishman who has somehow ended up living in Melbourne with a wonderful wife and two cheeky daughters. Don’t ask how that happened as I’m not too sure myself…
The Reading List? It does exist, in Excel form, and it’s getting longer by the day. The list was started on the first day of my blog, and it now contains over one-thousand titles, culled from the never-ending pile of books we call literature.
What do I read? A lot 😉 Over the past few years, my focus has shifted to fiction in translation. In addition to my usual fare of German and French writing (mostly in the original language) and Japanese literature (AKA J-Lit!), I have been casting my nets further afield to take in the best the world has to offer, including an increasing amount of Korean fiction over the past year or so.
What else do I do? That’s not enough? Well, I teach English as a second language, currently to prospective university students, and try to keep up my own language skills in French and German (while learning Korean on the side). I used to play football too, but those days are long gone 😦
Why do I do this? If anyone finds out, please let me know…
Tony's Reading List 
welcome on wordpress! I made the move years ago, and have never regretted it
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Emma – Thanks 🙂 Glad to be here!
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This is embarrassing but I’ve only just discovered that you moved here! Somehow I missed your post way back when announcing it. Have noticed your absence in my inbox and finally decided to do something about it and here I found you. (Of course, if you’d come and said hello to me I would have found you sooner! 😉
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Sue – Yes, it’s been a while (I actually migrated back at the start of February!). I do drop by your blog from time to time, but I’m not great at leaving comments…
Not sure if you’ve seen them, but recently posts you might be interested in (with an Australian slant) concern my trips to this year’s MWF 🙂
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Yes, I saw you’d done some – will come back and read them.
BTW Glad you saw the light and moved to WordPress! Hope you are happy. As a reader I’m happy you have. I hate visiting blogger sites. I manage one blogger site (the first one I ever set up) and manage or am involved in 4 WP sites. I’ve often thought about transferring the blogger one over but I’d have to train the other contributors none of whom blog elsewhere so I think I’ll just leave it there as they’re familiar with it.
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Sue – It took a while, but I’m used to it now. The main benefit is for readers and subscribers, not really for me 🙂
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Absolutely I think … much better for commenters. But, I must say I do like creating posts better in WP than Blogger but maybe that’s just because I don’t do the blogger one as frequently. I also think WP does Stats much better.
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Great blog, Tony! Are you on Twitter?
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Guy – Thank you very much!
Yes, I am on Twitter under the handle @tony_malone 🙂
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I’d like to submit you a book to be reviewed, and don’t know how to do.
Will you please help me?
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Eleonore – You can contact me at the email address given in the ‘Review Policy’ section (at the top of the home page). However, I am planning to cut down a little on review copies, so I can’t promise that I will be able to help.
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Tony,
I am writing to you from France.
Your blog is a pleasure of humour and finesse, and invites you for a talk. In fact, after visiting your blog, I have felt like confident and not afraid of sharing with you the novel I sent you.
I thank you very much for your curiosity and your attention.
Eleonore
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Tony are you planning a Japan in January event in 2016 – I’m trying to build a page full of links to challenges and would be looking to include it
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Karen – Sadly not (I posted on this last month). While I’m still intending to read some J-Lit, and encourage other people to do so using the #JanuaryinJapan hashtag on Twitter, unfortunately I don’t have time to do it justice this year…
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Sorry to hear that Tony. I missed the post you wrote on this
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Hi Tony , I’m looking for people who might be willing to do a guest post on my blog where they talk about literature from a particular country – the feature is called The View from Here and is meant to be a way of expanding people’s reading horizons. So far i’ve had people write about their home country – since you have a lot of passion for Korean literature which is a burgeoning field, I’m wondering if you would be interested? How it works is that I send you some questions and you write as much/as little as you want. You can see other examples on the blog at https://bookertalk.com/world-literature/the-view-from-here/
If interested could you drop me a note at heenandavies at yahoo dot co dot uk
Hoping you say yes…..
Karen
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Am delighted to have discovered you thanks to Maclehose Press! Have published … then agented … currently promoting translations … also celebrating independent publishing via The BookBlast® Diary betwixt and between other bookblasting activities! Signing up happily. Yrs, Georgia
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Tony, just learned of your blog from your piece in the Quarterly Conversation. I enjoyed the article; have had intentions (thus far unfulfilled) to read Tanizaki but now my interest has been piqued again. Look forward to exploring your other reviews on here as well.
Thanks
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Black Forest Bookshop – Good to hear 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to peruse the other Tanizaki reviews here (about fifteen now, from memory) – Japanese literature is one of my hobby horses 🙂
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Really enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work. Also really great to learn more about books in translation.
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Hello, it’s many years since your review of Modiano’s The Night Watch. I just finished it and my head is still spinning. I’m left without an understanding of the final turn of events. Care to share your interpretation? Does Skip Troubadour turn in the Resistance Lieutenant as well as go on to lead the French Gestapo on a chase without an end?
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Lews – As you mentioned, it’s several years since I read the book, and I’m afraid I’d struggle to remember the main plot, let alone details!
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