For #WITMonth, Women in Translation month, hosted by Meytal at Biblibio, it’s traditional to look back at one’s reading over the past year, to see if #WITMonth carries over from August into the rest of the year, so here’s a quick list of what I read from Aug 31 2025 to Aug 1 2026…
- A Lethal Legacy by Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir – Iceland – (8/10) Review
- Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann – Germany – (7/10) Review
- Every Time We Say Goodbye by Ivana Sajko – Croatia – (8/10) Review
- Black as Death by Lilja Sigurðardóttir – Iceland – (8.5/10) Review
- The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun – Germany – (7.5/10) Review
- The Bridegroom was a Dog by Yoko Tawada – Japan – (5.5/10) Review
- Here, and only Here by Christelle Dabos – France – (6.5/10)Review
- Heaven by Meiko Kawakami – Japan – (10/10) Review
- Sharks by Simone Buchholz – Germany – (9/10) Review
- Murder Pool by Stella Blomkvist – Iceland – (9/10) Review
- Stop Dead by Katrín Júlíusdóttir – Iceland – (9/10) Review
- On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle – Denmark (9/10) Review (20B#9)
- Just a Little Dinner by Cécile Tlili – France – (9/10) Review
- The Garden Square by Marguerite Duras – France (6/10) Review (20B#10)
- Gratitude by Delphine de Vigan – France (10/10) Review (20B#11)
- On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle – Denmark (20B#16)
- A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot – France – (20B#17)
I read twelve in the same period last year – so 17 this time is an improvement, although the countries visited were limited and dominated by France (well it was Paris in July), then Iceland, with just three other countries represented. Note: this August I’ve read a but more widely…
Now to my reviews of the second and third in Balle’s time-looping series, for #WITMonth and #20BOS26. New readers to this series should start here with the first book, as some minor spoilers are inevitable.
On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle
Translated from the Danish by Barbara J Haveland
When we left bookseller Tara who had got stuck in a time-loop set on November 18th, she had just completed a year’s worth of the same day replaying itself – but not replaying itself exactly. She had discovered she could relocate, returning from Paris home to her husband Thomas. She also discovered that not everything acquired through the day disappeared overnight – if she kept items really close to her overnight, they might become hers. However, she soon tired of explaining why she had arrived home to Thomas everyday, so moved into the spare room where she lived secretly until he went out.
In the second book she gets itchy feet. With it always being mid-November, she’s missed it getting really cold and she’s yearning to get Christmassy. She decides to head to her parents, catching a train to Lille and stopping over at a hotel.
It had dawned on me that I had been lucky in Lille. That I could have woken up in a hotel room that was already occupied, where someone had gone to bed on the night of the seventeenth and where the same someone woke up in my bed on the morning of the eighteenth. In principle.
She arrives at her parents, with gifts and ingredients for a Christmas lunch, and a story about needing to celebrate early, but she also explains about being stuck in a time-loop and they don’t question it, just get on with preparing for Christmas…
#403
Our Christmas morning began a little chaotically. My parents had forgotten everything. I had to tell them my whole story again, from my burned hand to the mirthful fridge, before we could even have breakfast.
She enjoys her Christmas, but has to move on, going north to Scandinavia where it’ll feel more like winter. She starts to keep a seasons diary, and as the days go by she moves around Europe to replicate the passage of the year. She ends up in Düsseldorf, where she attends lectures at the university, learning about Ancient Roman culture. However, she is increasingly concerned about the effect she is having on November 18th.
#862
I try to conceal it,but I know. I am a monster and I devour my world. There is no getting away from it. I can eat leftovers. I can go hungry all day. I can flit from place to place and leave the least possible trace, I can spread my shopping, I can opt for the fullest tea cannister at Café Möller, but these are all simply attempts to conceal the truth, to make the monster smaller. I know. At some point it will be over. Empty tins, empty pots. There’s no hiding it. I am a very small monster in a gilded cage.
Then something happens – and we’re left on a cliff-hanger!
I enjoyed how Balle developed things from the first book very much. Tara’s travels through the seasons made perfect sense. Her increasing existential dread at consuming her world as we move through her third year sets us up neatly for the next installment in which that cliffhanger will reveal itself!
Source: Own copy. Faber flapped paperback, 204 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.
On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle
Translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Don’t read this if you intend to read the previous books.
We begin at #1144 at the Dǔsseldorf lecture. The same people are there, asking the same questions and as it came to the end…
…the man who had just walked up the steps was wearing the wrong coloured shirt. Because the eighteenth of November does not change shirts.
Yes, Tara has encountered another person stuck in November 18th. They spend ages telling each other their stories. Henry is Norwegian, but spends most his time in Germany, apart from when he visits his five-year-old son who lives with his mother in America. The flat Tara has found has ample room for them both, so he moves in. They live frugally, usually on food about to be thrown away to minimise their impact.
They’ll agree to go their own ways soon, meeting again at the flat in a year’s time. Henry will travel to the USA, Tara back to Thomas and Clairon-sous-Bois.
These were not unpleasant days. We enjoyed each other’s company. We went for walks and made love on the black-and-white rug in the living room or in the ned upstairs. Our days and nights were filled with long conversations., sweet collisions, gentle encounters. I don’t know if I felt loved, exactly: I felt wanted, touched, but it wasn’t the same as before.
Then Tara has a visitor in Clairon-sous-Bois – a young woman, Olga, has been looking for her – she’s another looper, and there’s Ralf too. The four eventually meet up and decide to relocate together to Bergen where Ralf, a computer bod, works and he thinks he can create a way for their digital footprint to stay – it’s one of the things that wipes clean every night.
Then something happens – and we’re left on another cliff-hanger!
In this volume, I really liked the way that Balle used the other looper’s experiences to show how each was experiencing the phenomenon differently. One of the things that Tara has become very sensitive to is the deep down sounds of everyday life – and Balle eloquently describes the sounds of an empty house, the breeze in the trees and more – does this explain the series title? Maybe…
Meanwhile, the change of translators for this volume appears seamless; the same team continues for book IV.
Source: Own copy. Faber flapped paperback, 194 pages. BUY at Amazon UK or Waterstones via my affiliate links.
