Medical analysis of the Bond-novels
So among BMJ's ("formerly the British Medical Journal") Christmas 2013 research pieces is one which considers: Were James Bond's drinks shaken because of alcohol induced tremor ? The...
View ArticleProfile: Meja Mwangi
In the Daily Nation Ciugu Mwagiru profiles Kenyan author Meja Mwangi, the reclusive writer with a mighty pen. I read a couple of his books that appeared in the African Writers Series...
View ArticleProfile: Geoffrey Hill
In The Telegraph Sameer Rahim profiles the great poet, in Geoffrey Hill: poetry should be shocking and surprising. (Lots of his work is under review at the complete review; see our...
View ArticleTranslation in ... India
In the Economic Times G.Seetharaman reports that Despite pitfalls, publishers bet on translated vernacular Indian literature. Good to hear -- and it's kind of surprising that it only now...
View ArticleThe Night Sessions review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ken MacLeod's The Night Sessions.
View ArticleLire's 20 best of 2013
Best-of-the-year lists just aren't as popular outside the US/UK. One of the more notable ones (of the few ...) in France is Lire's Palmarès Lire: les 20 meilleurs livres de l'année 2013 --...
View Article21世纪年度最佳外国小说
So the Chinese have an award for the 21世纪年度最佳外国小说 -- amounting to: the 'Best 21st Century Foreign Novel of the Year' -- and they've just announced this year's five winners: Anne Gesthuysen's...
View ArticleWorst of the year list
Steve Donoghue certainly seems to get through a lot of books, and while most end-of-the-year lists are a pretty boring lot he offers -- over a number of posts and days -- a variety of amusing...
View ArticleAmazon's 2013 bestsellers
This barely seems worth a mention (though it seems to have gotten a lot of them), but, as the official press release has it, Amazon Announces Best-Selling Books of 2013. I do mention it...
View ArticlePrize: Albatros Literaturpreis
The biennial Internationaler Literaturpreis Albatros -- awarded by the Günter Grass Stiftung Bremen -- has announced its 2014 winners (yes, they'll only get to pick up the prize in April); not...
View ArticlePrize: Joseph Conrad Prize
I guess it makes sense that a Polish institution would award a prize named after a famous son -- though if that's Joseph Conrad I would have figured there was an English-language connection....
View ArticlePoliticians' books in ... Korea
The book-penned-by-a-politician (or at least published under his or her name ...) is a pre-election-year standard around the world, and in The Korea Times Kim Tong-hyung offers a look at the...
View Article'Trade courtesy' in Iran
A couple of months ago I reviewed Robert Spoo's interesting work, Without Copyrights, which looked at the near-free-for-all that American copyright law made for with regard to foreign (both...
View ArticleRentrée littéraire 2014 preview
The French are already looking ahead to the first big flood of books in 2014: the fall rentrée littéraire is usually the period when the biggest titles come out, but the winter rentrée is also...
View ArticleDutch fiction and the BTBA
All of us Best Translated Book Award judges post prize-related entries at Three Percent, and my latest one is on the Dutch (and Flemish) titles in the running for the award -- not many titles...
View ArticleMore on French books in English
Last week I discussed at some length Hugh Schofield's BBC News piece wondering Why don't French books sell abroad ? Now Laurence Marie, head of the book department at the US French...
View ArticleGenre fiction and the BTBA
Another blog post by me in my capacity as Best Translated Book Award judge at Three Percent, as I weigh in on The Genre Heap we deal with -- and wonder why so few genre titles (especially...
View ArticleTHE 'Best books of 2013'
I've been trying to keep the 'best books of the year lists' links to a minimum here -- I'm sure you come across your fill elsewhere -- but a few are worth pointing to. So also now the Times...
View ArticleRussian literature abroad
The headline of Dmitry Bak's Russia beyond the Headlines article -- From Chekhov to Akunin, Russian literature is being condensed -- seems to have lost something in translation, but his lament...
View ArticlePalestinian literature
At Qantara.de Fakhri Saleh 'explores the effect that the loss of homeland has had on Palestinian literature and self-perception', in A Nation Crafted From Words -- a solid overview (though with...
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