The New York Times Book Review has announced its 100 Notable Books of 2013
A couple of things are notable about the list itself -- including the fact that all of three titles are works in translation (oh dear, folks are going to take that as confirmation of the infamous 'three per cent' pseudo-statistic ...). This has the making of a disturbing trend -- the 2012 list had four, the 2011 list had five (plus David Bellos' Is That a Fish in Your Ear ?): things are definitely moving in the wrong direction.
The three titles in translation are:
Or actually, what says it all is that they list a hundred books and don't include the fabulous FSG doorstop, Zibaldone (see the Farrar, Straus & Giroux publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk)
Look, I can get them ignoring a book like Leg over Leg -- as big a deal as that is, it's going to take a while for word to spread and that one to sink into wider consciousness. But the publication of Zibaldone, that's about as notable a publishing event as we've had this year.
Meanwhile, other than two of the translations, the only other 'notable' book I've read, and reviewed at the complete review, seems to be Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch .....
So, yeah, I appear to be rather out of the reading-mainstream -- at least as far as defined by The New York Times Book Review .....
Okay -- I can live that .....
A bit more fun: the Times Literary Supplement collects lots of writers' picks in their 'Books of the Year' issue, and a selection is now available online.
A couple of things are notable about the list itself -- including the fact that all of three titles are works in translation (oh dear, folks are going to take that as confirmation of the infamous 'three per cent' pseudo-statistic ...). This has the making of a disturbing trend -- the 2012 list had four, the 2011 list had five (plus David Bellos' Is That a Fish in Your Ear ?): things are definitely moving in the wrong direction.
The three titles in translation are:
- The Dinner by Herman Koch
- The Infatuations by Javier Marías
- The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Or actually, what says it all is that they list a hundred books and don't include the fabulous FSG doorstop, Zibaldone (see the Farrar, Straus & Giroux publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk)
Look, I can get them ignoring a book like Leg over Leg -- as big a deal as that is, it's going to take a while for word to spread and that one to sink into wider consciousness. But the publication of Zibaldone, that's about as notable a publishing event as we've had this year.
Meanwhile, other than two of the translations, the only other 'notable' book I've read, and reviewed at the complete review, seems to be Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch .....
So, yeah, I appear to be rather out of the reading-mainstream -- at least as far as defined by The New York Times Book Review .....
Okay -- I can live that .....
A bit more fun: the Times Literary Supplement collects lots of writers' picks in their 'Books of the Year' issue, and a selection is now available online.