Feb/Mar Issue of Bookforum
The new issue of Bookforum is now out and available online. Like usual, there are a number of interesting pieces worth checking out, including Leland de la Durantaye’s review of Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (pretty positive review), Ben Ehrenreich’s review of Ismail Kadare’s The Siege, (not so ...
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Cortazar Play "In Translation"
What a find! In Translation, put out by the Brooklyn Rail, and run by Donald Breckenridge, started publishing new translations online a couple years ago. (The site is sort of like a scaled-down Words Without Borders) and their latest “issue” includes The Kings by Julio Cortazar. “The Kings” (Los ...
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The Life and Times of Cody's Bookstore
Stacy Perman of Business Week wrote an excellent article about the downfall of Cody’s Books in San Francisco. Cody’s was always one of Dalkey’s greatest accounts (and probably would’ve been for Open Letter had they been around when we started selling our books), in part because of a bookseller name ...
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Vice Magazine and John Calder
I have to thank Dan Visel for bringing this to my attention. Until he e-mailed me, I hadn’t looked at Vice magazine in quite some time. But what a fiction issue! Heinrich von Kleist’s The Earthquake in Chile (forthcoming from Archipelago), an interesting list of recommendations from writers who are also teachers, ...
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Best Translated Book 2008 Longlist: The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans
We’re into the home stretch now . . . Through next Friday we’ll be highlighting a book-a-day from the 25-title Best Translated Book of 2008 fiction longlist, leading up to the announcement of the 10 finalists. Click here for all previous write-ups. The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans, ...
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Fair and Balanced
In contrast to the news from the NEA about adult reading, here’s some more sobering info from Publishers Weekly: November bookstore sales were as bad as people thought they were. Preliminary figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that sales dropped 13% in the month, falling to $1.05 billion. Sales for all of ...
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Some Good News about Reading from the NEA
This past Monday, the National Endowment for the Arts released some promising findings about the reading habits of Americans, showing that for the first time in 25 years, the percentage of adults reading literature increased over the previous study. (Studies have been done five times since 1982, which is why this phrasing is ...
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