Tokarczuk’s novel is a refined literary tapestry that constantly shifts boundaries—of reality and dream, of convention and transgression, of truth and invention. It is at once a hymn to the borderlands, with their complex structure, layered histories, and cultural entanglements. Reading it, one feels the dream bleed into wakefulness, with a gentle but persistent undertone of melancholy.

The interwoven stories of the book’s characters are often enchanting, though at times they introduce a subtle dissonance that unsettles the reader. Yet this very friction deepens the sense of mystery and unpredictability.

At heart, House of Day, House of Night is a study of place—social, geographical, and historical—a multifaceted meditation that drifts between reality and fiction. It is a book best savored slowly, in daylight as well as at night, for it carries a resonance that lingers across both.

3.5/4

House of Day House of Night is a re-publication of Tokarczuk's 1998 work, which was first translated into English in 2002.

The book is made up of stories about the inhabitants of Nowa Ruda, a small town on the Polish/Czech border. Some residents like the narrator and Marta's stories continue throughout the book. Some only appear once.

I'd have to say the recurring story of Kummernis was most interesting for me, although Ergo Sum, who believes he is a werewolf came a close second and the story about the man who dies on the border feltvlike it could have been taken direct from a newspaper. It is difficult to describe the book because although the stories are held together by the location, they rarely intersect with each other.

I didn't enjoy this as much as The Empusium but that's probably because I prefer a linear narrative. There are plenty of unsettlingans unusual stories in this translation, so I think any fan of Olga Tokarczuk's work will enjoy it. I would certainly recommend it.

Thankyou to Netgalley Fitzcarraldo for the advance review copy.

This is unfortunately one of those books where it is clearly a very good book, I just didn't personally get on with it and really had to push myself through.

This is a series of vignettes following people in and around a remote area of Poland, mostly in the post-war decades (with a focus on the displacements that occured after the war) but going as far back as the life of a legendary saint. They are interspersed with bits from who is technically our narrator, visiting the village in the (at time of book publication i.e. 90's) modern time.

The majority of these were interesting to me but largely unengaging, with Olga's writing having a bit too much of her disjointed, mystic style, and even when I was on the last few pages I kept getting distracted. This style is actually something I largely loved about Drive Your Plow and The Empusium, but it did not work for me here, perhaps due to this being one of her earlier works. The sense of place came across really well, especially the sense of remoteness and cold Polish winters, but the sense of time perhaps less so.

An interesting book and has made me do some more research into Polish post-war history, but I never had any desire to pick it back up and was just a slog for me to get through. Will definitely be loved by many though so don't let me put you off.

3/5 stars

While this one had some gorgeous writing and the lush atmosphere of the pre-war Polish border, it didn’t grip me like I had hoped. The main character felt very distant and I couldn’t get a real grip on her chapters. I much preferred other POVs and some of the stories told about the other people around the area: Marek Marek, Peter Dieter, and the priest Paschalis.

I can absolutely see why Tokarczuk is a Nobel Prize winning author: her prose is beautiful. I’m sure her other work would resonate more deeply with me, but this one just wasn’t it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for an ARC! Book released September 11, 2025 <3

3.5. Big fan of Tokarczuk's writing and themes as ever, but wanted a little more cohesion. I tend to avoid Goodreads reviews until I'm finished with a book so 1) my opinions aren't tampered with or tested before they've fully developed and 2) so I don't see any sort of spoilers or observations that wouldn't have otherwise occurred to me (I am relatively book-stupid, all things considered). Reading House of Day, House of Night, I saw and felt almost all of Tokarczuk's other novels within its pages. Its vignette structure makes it most akin to Flights, but there are certainly elements of Drive Your Plow, partially with the character of Marta, but also with the mushroom talk. The prevailing theme of death and time reminded me of The Empusium, but that's relatively tenuous, as almost all novels are about death. Vignettes, like short story collections, are always at risk of losing the reader either frequently or infrequently; it is inevitable to like some threads more than others. That was the case here. The cohesion is made through setting and theme, which sounds like a lot, but at times I wanted something more. Enjoyable nonetheless.

Well this was an odd experience. The book is really a collection of fragments of stories (only some connected) surrounding the say of the narrator (the author herself?) in a small Polish village. The fragments cover the present (the narrator's relationship with her spouse and the neighbours), the history of the various neighbours and other colourful characters in the village, the distant past and history of the village and the surroundings, and just thoughts about village life.

While somewhat disjointed and lacking a strong theme (not sure what this is really about), it captured my imagination and I truly enjoyed reading it. Some of the fragments are truly exciting and intellectually stimulating. So, while I'm not really sure what I read and what it was for, I enjoyed the experience. Maybe it will dawn on me in weeks and months to come and then I'll have an epiphany.

I recommend to fans of the author, and to folks who want to understand more about Poland and rural life there. There is much here about the overall picture of what it means to live in a Polish village - that's the only thing I think really ties it all together.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This is a creative piece of fiction that is somewhere between a novel and short stories. Set in a small Polish village, it ranges on topics from food to the life of saints.
This novel had some beautiful writing but I didn't enjoy my reading experience. I need to get into a plot, or feel like I know the characters, or get inspired by the ideas. None of these coalesced for me.
There were certainly some vignettes I thought were great, like the man who died on the border and the guards kept moving him back and forth. But that gives you an idea that the content is all fairly depressing like that.

Oh hell yeah this was weird. It tells the tale, well, many tales, of a Polish hamlet near the Czech border.

There are so many characters across time that are all (sometimes tenuously!) connected to this hamlet. You’re thrown out into their stories at a moments notice & it takes a little time to realise what’s happened.

This is a lot more literary than Drive Your Plow… and might not have the same broad appeal but it’s a book I really hope people give a chance. It’s so much fun! And the writing is beautiful. I loved it & had a ball reading it.

This started so strongly and I really enjoyed hearing about Marta and the other locals. Unfortunately towards the middle when the dreams came into play more my interest waned. I couldn’t keep up with what was happening, but I was always glad when the story returned to Marta.

The one tale I did love was the story of the the Saint which was so interesting.

Thank you NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hot on the heels of last years' The Empusium, House of Day House of Night switches back to Tokarczuk's vignette style, more like Flights than its predecessor (although, I'm actually unsure what order these last two of Tokarczuk's books were written, and I feel like maybe this is an earlier one, just freshly translated into English?)
Unsurprisingly, beautifully written (translation from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones). I loved zooming around this little Polish village and nosing into everyone's back stories.

I loved this book! It combines pieces from all of Tokaeczuk’s other novels and has elements of each throughout to make the book fall well within her world.

It’s a haunting and confusing history of one town on the border, that flirts around times and people but always returns to the story of the narrator and her older neighbour Marta. There are a variety of stories from Saints, and a dead man on the border to the local radio. It creates a rich tapestry of a single town throughout town; to me the weaving of stories focused on a single theme reminds me a lot of Flights and the Books of Jacob.

A kaleidoscopic collection of vignettes set in rural Poland at different points in time. Told in Tokarczuk's characteristic whimsical yet dark prose, every story is intertwined in the same way pieces of folklore are - each one is distinct, but part of a larger picture.

I especially enjoyed reading about Marta, the eccentric old wig maker and rhubarb enthusiast.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Tokarczuk is simply one of a kind in her seemingly detached, yet deeply compassionate writing style.

Thank you Fitzcarraldo and Netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy.

This is a very slice of life very poetic book about the region of Silesia in Poland. We follow several characters from this village go about their days in a very rough time, especially with the situation between Germany and Poland.

I love the writing and the philosophical writing. It is closest to flights by the same author, which I also really enjoyed. I can imagine it is not everybody, but it was for me. The way the authors mind works fascinates me and captivates me. I am very happy I read this and I hope more of her works get translated.

Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night is a darkly comic rhapsody on a place that mixes stories with history and recipes to create something distinctly unique. First published in Poland in 1998, this was first translated into English in 2002, translator Antonia Lloyd Jones has updated this for Fitzcarraldo. The translation is superb, and this work flowed smoothly in its reading. I loved spending time in the world Tokarczuk creates here in Nowa Ruda, a Silesian town on the Polish-Czech borderlands. Though perhaps not as immediately as gripping as Flights, this is another work very much worth the time to savour. Another fantastic novel.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

The House of Day, House of Night is rich, bleakly funny, and affecting—an episodic novel of sketches, stories, and essays, it renders the people and history of the Silesian village of Krajanów as patches of muted colour on a faded vintage wallpaper of swirls and loops, some of which resolve and some which trail into nothing.

This area of Silesia has a troubled history, with centuries of absorption into other states. Part of the German Reich until 1945, the borders of Poland shifted west and Poles were moved from territories annexed to the USSR and resettled in the former German territory. Much of the book covers this period and after.

I have seen the book described as “difficult” because of the complex historical references, but I didn’t find that at all. Though the subject matter was unfamiliar, Tokarczuk’s writing (and sympathetic, nuanced translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) is so abundantly accessible and perceptive that the humanity becomes the focus.

The novel opens with a dream of being “pure looking”, the sense of sight untethered, able to see everything at once, or focus on the smallest of details. We follow various threads but frequently return to the observations, dreams, and wonderings of an unnamed narrator, who muses on her relationship with a neighbour, Marta, her partner R. and other denizens of the small town, So-and-So, Marek Marek, etc. The narrator will mention these characters in passing, and then unbound we swoop in and explore their dreams, their loves, their fears and hopes.

The stories accrete, an association of themes, emotions, and preoccupations, into a cohesive mood of dislocation and quiet desperation, a search for joy, identity, and validity in uncertain times. Although first published in 1998, it still feels very relevant and timely.

I absolutely loved this book –Tokarczuk’s idiosyncratic prose and dialogue are strikingly potent, equally capable of stirring delight, horror, and torpor in this cold, damp, grey, place.

I’m already looking forward to reading this again.

This reads like a stream of consciousness and it’s absolutely beautiful; it’s bleak, it’s self aware, it’s detached and yet it flows together, each story entertained like a stream. It was so beautiful at times I wanted to cry. It’s unattached but entirely aware, like a daydream that wraps tales of this hamlet’s foundation, its figures, its history and ruminations.

Struggling with this one. I LOVE Tokarczuk but struggled with this as I felt like the short stories were interconnected, or I was struggling to see the connection, interspersed with one consistent story. An interesting format but definitely resonating with me less than some of Tokarczuk's other works.

Maybe I will give it another go when I'm in the mood for short stories.

A dark collection of loosely connected stories that are as weird and mesmerising as you would expect from Tokarczuk. I enjoyed some more than others, as is always the case with short stories or anthologies, but on the whole I really enjoyed this book and I find the author's writing haunting, vivid and lyrical.

Another masterpiece from Tokarczuk in the manner of her phenomenal Flights, House of Day, House of Night is part novel, part anthology exploring the non-linear history of Nowa Ruda, a Silesian town on the Polish-Czech borderlands. Its history is conveyed through the lives of saints, local mushroom recipes, and the strange riddles spoken by the narrator's neighbour Marta. Through Nowa Ruda's life, Tokarczuk contemplates the strangeness of the human condition, the fluctuations of reality, the significance of our dreams, the art of writing and the futility of time. Absurd stories brush shoulders with poignant wartime narratives in this novel-cum-collection of Nowa Ruda's past. After reading this, I wrote 10 pages worth of quotes in my reading journal, which really is testament to how much I loved it. I hope that Fitzcarraldo will continue publishing translations of Tokarczuk's back catalogue, her writings never fail to amaze me.

There were a number of stories in this I was really invested in, but then a number I found boring or too dense.

This isn’t technically a short story collection but I think it helps to read it as one because it jumps between stories a lot and many of them have no conclusions.

Took a while to get through this but it was a decent read overall. Just a weird structure to get your head around, especially if you’re expecting a linear plot (which you will not get)