Your quest for a good summer read ends here. Danielle Goldstein picks the best books of the season
Simone Weil: A Life in Letters
Edited by Robert Chenavier & André A Devaux (Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press, £31.95)
This is the first English translation of the complete letters of the Parisian philosopher, mystic and freedom fighter Simone Weil. The correspondence, which is addressed to her parents and mathematician brother, André Weil, span almost her entire lifetime, taking in two world wars and the Spanish Civil War. Her writing provides a unique insight into her philosophies and beliefs and shows how they evolved over time, right up until her death, aged just 34, due to heart failure.
Comedy in a Minor Key
By Hans Keilson, trans Damion Searls (Pushkin Press Classics, £9.99)
Hans Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key was published in Germany in 1947, but this is its first English print. The fictional story is undoubtedly inspired by the GermanDutch novelist and psychoanalyst’s own experiences. It tells of a young Dutch couple, Wim and Marie, who hide a Jewish man in their house during the Nazi occupation until a fatal accident occurs. In 1941, Keilson, too, was hidden by a married couple in the Netherlands but he survived and lived to be 101. He wrote many stories in his lifetime, most of which dealt with a similar subject matter.
Ccompletely Kafka: A Comic Biography
By Nicolas Mahler, trans Alexander Booth (Pushkin Press, £12.99)
This lighthearted look at the life of Franz Kafka marks 100 years since the death of the Germanlanguage author. The cartoonist brings Kafka’s stories to life in a manner fitting of their surrealist humour. Entrenched Kafka nerds are unlikely to learn anything new, but the novella makes for a pleasant flick-through, revealing how a nervous little man, with a fear of almost everything, became one of the greatest writers in history.
By Danielle Goldstein
This article appears in the Summer 2024 issue of JR.