In Another Country - David Constantine

English writer, poet and short stories.  This is a collection of short stories.
Constantine has a poet's sense of language.  He writes with a sparse, precise language.  His ability to follow and portray the hidden emotional pathways between two people is a joy to read.  The stories themselves are a bit depressing or unsettling, and they explore the hidden sides of life between people, the buried parts, the irrational parts.  No judgement, just tender observation.

Would like to have a look at some of his poetry.

The Long Road Home - KIm Yong

The story of an escapee from North Korea.  Kim Yong starts off as an orphan, but ends up as part of the elite of North Korea.  He lives in Pyong Yang and is part of the shadow pirate economy that collects foreign exchange through illegal cash trading on international markets to finance the elite's life style.  He is completely swallowed up in the machine.  Through some counterrevolutionary family connections that come out at one point, he ends up in the work camp/death camp system that operated some of the basic economy, such as coal mining.  He then escapes to China, and eventually South Korea.

A surprising story.  You get a look at the Land of Oz that is Pyong Yang in an otherwise desperate country.  You get a look at the desperate conditions of the work camp system.  What you don't get is any view, any understanding of the life of the average peasant or worker outside of Pyong Yang.  It is as if he never even saw the rest of the country - and yet there are stories of him driving all over the country to procure items for export.  As if he is completely blinded by the ideology, the privileges, the social gulf between rulers and ruled.
Another thing is, in spite of the harsh end to his life in North Korea, he emerges with all his inculcated propaganda intact, even in prison never having questioned the nature of the state and its messages.  Strange.

Macedonia and the Macedonians - Andrew Rossos

An excellent overview of Macedonian history from ancient times to the present.  It answered many of the questions I had about how Macedonia came to be such an important part of Balkan, and modern European, history.
Excellent discussion of how, over many years, the Macedonian people struggled to assert their identity and establish a homeland in spite of almost constant resistance from Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia.  Quite an accomplishment, actually.  Really the work of the people themselves, as they had no foreign sponsors, no Macedonian church, no strong political elite or association for most of their history.
There is also some interesting discussion of Macedonia's place in Yugoslavia - the Yugoslavian communists were the first (and only) to recognize Macedonians as a distinct ethnic group and support the establishment of a Macedonian state.
Didn't read every detail of the 20th century ins and outs of the struggle, but the book is well set up for skimming, with a summary at the beginning of each more detailed chapter.

The Automobile Club of Egypt - Alaa Al Aswany

By the author of the Yacoubian Building, but in a very different style.  There is something akin to Mahfouz in this substantial novel - maybe the host of characters, maybe the small street that all the book grows out from, maybe the glimpse into different socia classes.  A very good read.  An interesting, critical chronicle of the lives of the characters, and through them, a social history, a social critique, a critique of colonialism and empire.  Also a history of the period just before Nasser and the Egyptian revolution.
An excellent writer.  Worth rereading.

Borderland and Other Stories - Graham Swift

A very tight writer.  Short stories exploring unobtrusive moments of significance in people's lives.   He has the knack of switching voices as he switches stories and characters.

Natural Novel - Georgi Gospodinov

Even more meandering than his book I read earlier, The Physics of Sorrow.  He has actually managed to create a novel essentially without a story.  Endless short meanderings about many characters and subjects - toilets and bathroom history, flies, village life, language.  The author also slips in and out of various personae.  There is a loose thread of the story of main character's marriage and divorce.  This provides just enough tension and continuity to tie everything together somehow.

You begin to see some themes, some motifs present in his other books as you read this one - homeless people, the marginalized, eccentric or downright crazy people leading strange lives in half-abandoned villages.  Recurring images.  Why?  He is a very personal writer so it is hard to imagine the symbolism or significance.

The Stone Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro

Such a strange book.  Set in England  in the period after the Romans have left England, and everything has fallen apart.  Almost like a bizarre venture into the fantasy-historic genre.  King Arthur is mentioned; Sir Gawain in his old, rusty age appears; there is a dragon; the language is a bit stilted and fake.  Couldn't finish it.
I wonder where that book came from...  So unlike the rest of his work.