Radz Pandit
@radzpandit
Avid reader, book reviewer & amateur book photographer. I write about books on my blog Radhika’s Reading Retreat. Love art and travel too. Website: Also on: linktr.ee/radzpandit
Well, I'm enjoying this so much. Emily Wilson's translation of THE ODYSSEY.
My new blog post on SURREALISM, ALCHEMY AND ART - Susan L. Aberth’s excellent biography of Leonora Carrington in a sumptuous coffee-table format, highlighting Carrington’s life and artistic development complete with beautifully reproduced paintings. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/07/17/l...
"Home was a left turn, right was who knows. "A man becomes what he does," Madison Wheeler had said. I took who knows." - BLUE HIGHWAYS, William Least Heat-Moon. I'm loving this book! Starting Part Two shortly.
""You from the North?" "I guess I am." A Missourian gets used to Southerners thinking him a Yankee, a Northerner considering him a cracker, a Westerner sneering at his effete Easternness, and the Easterner taking him for a cowhand."
"There is one almost infallible way to find honest food at just prices in blue-highway America: count the wall calendars in a cafe." #BlueHighways
Finished THE SWEET DOVE DIED and it was another wonderful Pym. #NYRBWomen26
Starting this today, THE DIVINERS by Margaret Laurence in an enticing edition and I have high hopes. I loved The Stone Angel and A Jest of God.
TWILIGHT SLEEP brims with Edith Wharton’s sparkling wit as she casts an unflinching, satirical eye over the quirks and foibles of New York society in the Jazz Age. My thoughts on this excellent novel: readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/07/10/t...
‘Oh, is it raining?’ Leonora glanced towards the window. ‘Yes, so it is. Well, now, what can we do?’ ‘I thought perhaps if you had a bucket …’ Miss Foxe began. ‘A bucket?’ Leonora echoed. Really, did one look the sort of person who would have a bucket? 😄 #NYRBWomen26
Well I loved this! A lesser known Edith Wharton but so good. Her wit simply sparkles.
"Life continuing could not fold away what had happened but it offered something, blurring the drama of death’s immediacy." My post on William Trevor's sublime short story collection, CHEATING AT CANASTA. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/07/01/c...
"There was never any question of her choosing a life on land. She chose navigation, this quintessentially human knowledge; she chose ancient artisanship and modern machines, numbers and sensations, cosmic abstractions and the sun on her face. And all of this gave her a certain maturity and density."
"I know, however, that the memories are painful now. I am unconnected with them, and yet they hurt me." My new post on Joan Barfoot's wonderful novel, GAINING GROUND. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/06/24/g...
"There are places where it's hard to survive: a desert, an uninhabited island, Mars, in a war-torn country, in the jungle. In my family." My new blog post on Claudia Piñeiro's excellent novel, CATHEDRALS. Translated by Frances Riddle. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/06/20/c...
“Poor Arthur—from the first he had been one of her failures. She had a little cemetery of them—a very small one—planted over with quick-growing things, so that you might have walked all through her life and not noticed there were any graves in it.”
ABRA/ GAINING GROUND was superb, my first Barfoot and a strong contender for my year-end list. A woman leaves her husband and children to live in solitude in a remote cabin on her own terms. I read it on Kindle, but a Faber reissue is out in July and I'll be buying a copy. Absolutely loved it!
"They belonged to another generation: to the bewildered disenchanted young people who had grown up since the Great War, whose energies were more spasmodic and less definitely directed, and who, above all, wanted a more personal outlet for them."
The Leonora Carrington retrospective was fabulous! So glad I finally got to see her work.
Visited the wonderful @shakespeareandcompany.com today and of course, bought some books.
Loved Joanna Pocock's GREYHOUND, so had to get a copy of this too. BLUE HIGHWAYS: A JOURNEY INTO AMERICA by William Least Heat-Moon.
My new blog post on Inès Cagnati’s CRAZY GENIE - a sad, haunting, beautiful novel about poverty and a heartbreaking mother-daughter relationship. Translated from the French by Liesl Schillinger. readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/05/29/c...