Memoirs of a Porcupine review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alain Mabanckou's Memoirs of a Porcupine. Soft Skull brought this out in the US earlier this year, and it's too bad this...
View ArticleSwedish Academy prizes
Sure, the Swedish Academy is best known for deciding who gets the Nobel Prize in Literature each year, but they also give out a bucketload of domestic prizes, which they announced at their big...
View ArticleIcelandic Literary Prize nominees
They've announced the finalists for the Íslensku bókmenntaverðlaunin, five titles each in fiction and no; see, for example, the Fabulous Iceland report. Several of the authors in the...
View ArticleLibrary of Arabic Literature
One of the more exciting new publishing ventures is the Library of Arabic Literature, "a new series offering Arabic editions and English translations of key works of classical and premodern...
View Article'The publishing year 2012' in the UK
An annual favorite is where The Guardian has: 'publishers on their favourites -- and the ones they wished they had on their own lists', in looking back at The publishing year 2012....
View ArticleRecommendation and best-of-lists from: Germany
All these German not-quite-lists are so horrifically presented -- in slideshows and the like -- that I am reluctant to even link to them; but if you want to try to navigate them (I couldn't be...
View ArticleRecommendation and best-of-lists from: France
At Slate.fr Charlotte Pudlowski offers Top 5 des meilleurs livres de l'année 2012 -- with a Jean-Philippe Toussaint coming in fifth. Meanwhile, at Libération they got twenty foreign (for...
View ArticleThe year in books in: Japan
'The Japan Times invited seven of its book reviewers to pick their favorite books published or made available in Japan in 2012', and the results can be found via their 2012: The year in...
View ArticleThe year in books in: India
Zee News publishes the IANS/Madhusree Chatterjee report, wondering What worked in books in 2012 ? in India. Among the observations: However, four heavyweights, Joseph Anton by Salman...
View ArticleJanuary/February World Literature Today
The January/February issue of World Literature Today, with a focus on 2012 Neustadt Prize Laureate Rohinton Mistry, is now available, with much of the material freely accessible online....
View ArticleOn blurbing
An ever-popular filler-topic: book blurbs ! In The Independent Nick Clark tries to explain Why blurbs remain important in the digital age -- while offering quotes that show how truly worthless...
View ArticleWorst fiction 2012 !
One corrective to the American mass-media best-of-the-year book lists is something like in lieu of a field guide's list of The year's best: any list that has Peter Weiss' The Aesthetics of...
View ArticleLiterary world disconnect
It's been a good year for getting review copies at the complete review -- well over 500, so far, the most ever -- and I've covered a lot of books -- over 230 reviews and counting, the most in a...
View ArticlePersona review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Biography of Yukio Mishima by Inose Naoki, with Sato Hiroaki, Persona, just out in English from Stone Bridge Press. Note...
View ArticleYear in review
In The Telegraph David Robson offers a decent (if UK-centric) Review of the literary year, if you feel in the need of that kind of reminder.
View ArticleChinese Nobel alternatives
At the NYRblog Perry Link continues the argument, in Why We Should Criticize Mo Yan (see also the full-length version of the piece at ChinaFile, from which this is taken). What I found...
View ArticleIrrawaddy Literary Festival preview
The first Burmese literary festival, the Irrawaddy Literary Festival is set for 1 to 3 February, and in The Myanmar Times Zon Pann Pwint previews it, in Yangon literature fest aims to overcome...
View ArticleRentrée littéraire preview
Oh, for the days when the French jólabókaflóðið -- the annual rentrée littéraire -- came only once a year, in August. But for a while now they've added a second, winter rentrée, and Culturebook...
View ArticleJólabókaflóðið
At npr Jordan G. Teicher reports on how Literary Iceland Revels In Its Annual 'Christmas Book Flood'. Gotta love that enthusiasm -- and more: The Flood begins with the release of...
View ArticleThe Gate review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a new translation of Natsume Sōseki's The Gate, just out from NYRB Classics. (By the way, in Japanese the title is written...
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