The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning
Former soldier and current hitman for the Croatian mafia in New York, Tomislav Bokšić, nicknamed Toxic, has dispatched roughly 125 people. It’s a fully ingrained way of life for Toxic—he feels “restless if three months go by without firing a gun”—and takes pride in his professionalism. As a “triple ...
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Because One Lispector Pic Is Never Enough
The finished copies of the four new Lispector translations—Near to the Wild Heart, A Breath of Life, The Passion According to G.H., and Agua Viva—and in addition to creating a picture of Lispector when you put the fronts together (click here to see what I’m talking about), if you flip the books over, you can ...
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An Open Secret
In An Open Secret, author Carlos Gamerro, a native to Argentina, weaves together a complex murder mystery that explores how the death of a single man both affects and implicates an entire community. Twenty years after left-wing journalist Dario Ezcurra vanished from the small town Malihuel during Argentina’s Dirty War (a ...
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World in Translation Month Redux [And a Book Suggestion for You!]
Earlier this month I posted about World in Translation Month, and asked everyone to buy one Open Letter book to a) celebrate this special month and b) save our fiscal year (which is Quite Bad). I want to take a minute to thank all of you who have helped out by buying a book directly from us (a lot of you did!), or from ...
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Smut Even Your Mother Will Like [Fifty Shades of Hating]
From today’s PW: The week leading to Mother’s Day was a good one for print books in general and adult fiction in particular. Unit sales of fiction titles at the outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan rose 20% in the week driven by sales of that new favorite Mother’s Day gift—one of the titles from E.L. James’ ...
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The Intricacies of Translating a Single Sentence
At this year’s ALTA Conference (which will take place October 3-6 here in Rochester and will be the Best ALTA Ever . . . get more info here and if you come, I promise you a good time), we’re going to have a roundtable organized by Aron Aji to investigate the difficulties of translating a single sentence. ...
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Celebrate Michael Filippone's Birthday by Winning a Ton of Books [Insane Giveaways]
To celebrate his birthday, Michael Filippone decided he wanted to arrange a massive, insane book giveaway featuring works from his favorite presses. So, he contacted Open Letter (along with New Directions, Archipelago, NYRB, etc., etc.) and asked us to donate a copy of a book to give to the one lucky winner. As a result, the ...
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