TomažŠalamun (1941-2014)
Leading Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun has passed away; see, for example, the RTV Slovenija report, Poslovil se je Tomaž Šalamun, ikonoklast slovenske poezije, or the updated biography page at...
View ArticleTrendy in ... India
At Scoop.in Arunava Sinha reports on The three genres that topped 2014: the gap between pulp and literary fiction just got wider in India. Limited to 'the bestselling lists put out by...
View ArticleAndrey Kurkov Q & A
At Deutschlandfunk they have an interesting and fairly extensive (German) Q & A with Death and the Penguin-author Andrey Kurkov They begin by talking about the fact that they're...
View ArticleBestselling in 2014 in ... the UK (and France)
The Guardian has now posted Bestselling books of 2014: the chart -- the 100 top sellers for 2014, complete with sales-figures, through 21 December (why they couldn't wait ten more days to get a...
View ArticleJanuary-February World Literature Today
The January-February issue of World Literature Today is now available, in part, online, including the video of Mia Couto's 'Re-enchanting the World: The 2014 Neustadt Prize Acceptance Speech'...
View Article2014 in books in ... the Middle East
In the Daily Star India Stoughton considers the Top Middle East novels of 2014. In Today's Zaman Marion James considers Has it been a good year for Turkish literature lovers ?
View ArticlePulp publishing
In The New Yorker Louis Menand has an interesting article on Pulp's Big Moment, a neat overview of the mass-market paperback revolution.
View ArticleSalon-critics' choice lists
At Salon they now have Salon's What to Read Awards: Top critics choose the best books of 2014 where they tally up the top ten but also list each critic's top ten, as well as answers to six...
View ArticleMarried Life review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of David Vogel's Married Life. This is yet another book which it's taken me a long time to get to -- 2836 days since I...
View ArticleRandom House memories
At Tablet they offer the full text of the remarks former Random House head Robert L. Bernstein made 10 December, when receiving The New Press' Social Justice Award, in Discovering Toni...
View ArticleMore best-of-2014
Another foreign best of the year list, as Les inRocks offer Les 25 meilleurs livres de 2014. Emmanuel Carrère's Le Royaume makes their top five, too -- god, am I really going to have to...
View Article2015
As usual, the transition to a new year doesn't mark any special demarcation point at the complete review. As always, there are humble ambitions to clean up this or that at the site in the...
View ArticleThe year in reviews at the complete review
In 2014, 196 books were reviewed at the complete review, down slightly from the 203 in 2013, and just short of the soft target of 200. I received 540 review copies -- considerably more...
View ArticleChip Kidd's Murakami-The Strange Library
At The New Yorker Roland Kelts has a piece on Illustrating Murakami -- profiling The Strange Library's US-edition illustrator Chip Kidd. It's interesting, but there's no mention of the...
View ArticleThe Fall of Language in the Age of English review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Mizumura Minae's The Fall of Language in the Age of English, just (about) out from Columbia University Press. Her A True...
View Article2014 at the complete review - site statistics
After yesterday's look at The year in reviews at the complete review, now some user-statistics: The 50 Most Popular Reviews - 2014 look much like those in 2013: mainly backlist reviews,...
View ArticlePublishers Weekly's top reviews - 2014
It's always interesting to see what the most popular reviews are at review-sites (see also below ...), and at Publishers Weekly they report on PW's Top Book Reviews of 2014, "an intriguing mix...
View ArticleRussian 'Year of Literature'
Yes, 2015 is Год литературы в России (yeah, they're not quite ready for action yet ...) -- the 'Year of Literature' in Russia. Yes, sure, every year should be the year of literature, but...
View ArticleMinute-Operas review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Frédéric Forte's Minute-Operas -- Oulipo poetry, translated by, among others, fellow Oulipians Daniel Levin Becker and Ian Monk...
View ArticleThe year ahead in books
So far the 2015 book-previews have been pretty limited, but The Guardian's Books in 2015: the essential literary calendar is a decent starter-guide.
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