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From the Guardian in same story for them as Catton:Two time Man Booker winner Peter Carey has a new novel coming in January 2018: A Long Way from Home, to be published by Faber & Faber. Set in Australia and opening in 1953, the novel follows the Bobbsey family and their neighbour Willie as they decide to enter the Redex Trial, a dangerous car race that circumnavigates the country.
Figured this was a good place to post this - an interesting new Forbes article about Goodreads itself (and not JUST because I'm quoted in it!):https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelb...
That's certainly the case for some genre authors, though I know more people who hesitate at the sight of that "(Goodreads Author)" designation beside a book, or who use the term as a byword for stuff they wouldn't be interested in, because the stereotype in some quarters is still that it means a self-publisher of poorly edited fiction or self-help.Does it do anything for literary /experimental authors (not those who were reader-members with hundreds of friends before they published, and whose main readership is their GR friends)? I'm not at all sure. A fair number of readers of that sort of thing see GR as a noisy, troll-ridden place for genre readers.
The reality when one sees one of those - a GR author of something of interest - is usually that they were active for a couple of weeks in 2015 and don't appear to have done anything on the site since.
Can't really comment on the Goodreads Author bit (although technically I am one!).But page 2 re how it works for readers, and particularly the remarks from that Doug chap, certainly rang true. I first came to GR hoping it would give me sensible recommendations based on my ratings but that bit of the site is rubbish. I then used it simply to store what I'd read. But more recently the social network side Doug mentions - e.g. being able to look at reviews from people whose reviews you trust (and indeed whose biases you also know) has been very useful, as well as discussion boards like this one.
Antonomasia wrote: "That's certainly the case for some genre authors, though I know more people who hesitate at the sight of that "(Goodreads Author)" designation beside a book, or who use the term as a byword for stu..."Although I can see your point, it all depends on what you read and are interested in - in casually looking over my own list of books read recently, the names that appear therein as GR authors include: Dana Spiotta, Anakana Schofield, Andre Aciman, Vivek Shanbhag, Delia Ephron, Jennifer Egan, Ian McGuire, Adam Haslett, Lisa McInerney, Koren Zailckas ... not a single genre or self published author in the bunch, and most of those mentioned are prominent book award nominees/winners !
That Doug guy talks sense! I've had similar experience to Paul in that I joined hoping for good recommendations. I get them now, but from people whose reviews I have come to trust and definitely NOT from the Goodreads recommendations function which is forever offering me books I have no interest in! Initially, I just stored details of which books I'd read, but the discussion side has become far more important than that (and my TBR list grows accordingly).
For years I have found Amazon UK's recommendations - customers who bought this also bought / looked at - absolutely excellent, but the Goodreads ones are hardly ever as useful.
Doug wrote: "Antonomasia wrote: "That's certainly the case for some genre authors, though I know more people who hesitate at the sight of that "(Goodreads Author)" designation beside a book, or who use the term..."Not Paul Fulcher? Can't tempt you for a GBP120 pound book on derivative market reform?
Antonomasia wrote: "For years I have found Amazon UK's recommendations - customers who bought this also bought / looked at - absolutely excellent, but the Goodreads ones are hardly ever as useful."
The Amazon experience I always like is when I think who could possibly have bought book A and also completely unrelated book B - but then realise it is usually either me, or my clone.
Paul wrote: "Doug wrote: "Antonomasia wrote: "That's certainly the case for some genre authors, though I know more people who hesitate at the sight of that "(Goodreads Author)" designation beside a book, or who..."LOL! Can I wait till it comes on sale? or I win the lottery? ;-)
Neil wrote: "That Doug guy talks sense! I've had similar experience to Paul in that I joined hoping for good recommendations. I get them now, but from people whose reviews I have come to trust and definitely NO...":-) Thanx, Neil! I actually joined GR specifically in order to join a Booker reading group, but have enjoyed many of the other features. Like you, I find the GR reading recommendations ludicrous, despite my rather eclectic and outré reading taste (they always seem to be recommending weird sex books to me.... hmmmmm), but I have added untold books I never would have known about to my TBR list, which I have found through the group notices and friends reading and recommending stuff.
People who are interested in commentary on the translation process may like this post by Neil Gaiman: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
Because The Master and Margarita is on the group's mind, it's headliner final match against To the Lighthouse about to start, I thought folk might be interested in knowing that
Mikhail and Margarita
, by Julie Lekstrom Himes, is about to come out from Europa Editions. Here's why she wrote it:"I read [The Master and Margarita] and fell in love with it but became even more interested when I read the background of Mikhail Bulgakov and the censorship that he suffered while he was writing in Moscow.
It's her debut novel, and my initial thoughts is that that's quite an ambitious place to start. I hope she's pulled it off!
Thanks Trevor, sounds like another one for the wish list...
Is anyone else fascinated by the lists for translation prizes in non-English speaking countries? This is one today via the Complete Review:http://rbth.com/arts/literature/2017/...
So for Russians who don't read much English, Beloved, The Little Friend, Birdsong, The Corrections, A Man Called Ove and The Noise of Time are all basically new at the same time, now in 2016-17. Kind of mindblowing, but of course that's how the MBI and BTBA lists seem to people from abroad - I never feel so aware of that as when looking at lists like this one.
Antonomasia wrote: "So for Russians who don't read much English, Beloved, The Little Friend, Birdsong, The Corrections, A Man Called Ove and The Noise of Time are all basically new at the same time, now in 2016-17."That is so cool to think about!
A new Richard Flanagan out - in November so one for the 2018 Booker?https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Hilary Mantel's final part of the Cromwell trilogy is also due out in time for the Booker.
Anya wrote: "Just a note: this list isn't a list of newly released books. Some of the books reappear from year to year (ex/ "The White Tiger" and "Submission" were on it last year as as well.)It's more like a ..."
Ah, I see!
Though as a general principle with foreign translation-award lists, which mostly are for books first translated in the previous year or so, it is still quite thrilling to see that rearrangement of book-chronology, and old made new again, in another country.
Karen, do you have a source for the Mantel publication date? I know it's supposed to come out in 2017, but I can't find a date which makes me wonder if it will make this year's Booker deadline. If this has been determined, I'd love to know!
Trevor wrote: "Karen, do you have a source for the Mantel publication date? I know it's supposed to come out in 2017, but I can't find a date which makes me wonder if it will make this year's Booker deadline. If ..." this is so frustrating - I thought I had read it in The Bookseller but now I can't find that article.
No worries! I hope it's true! I'm sure we'll know soon if that is the case since it will be all over the headlines!
Speaking of Hilary Mantel, Claire Armitstead has an interesting article in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...) on "Is Hilary Mantel's view of historical fiction out of date?" Armitstead provides high (and I think much deserved) praise for Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday.
For those of you who enjoy essays about writing by novelists, I recommend Colum McCann's "Letters to a Young Writer." I'm neither a writer nor young, but McCann's essays help me to think more about the choices confronted by fiction writers. I enjoy A. L. Kennedy's essays in On Writing, but McCann focuses less than Kennedy on his own process and more on helping writers recognize the choices that they confront.
The Story Prize longlist for short story collections published in 2017 has been released here: http://thestoryprize.blogspot.com. It contains some familiar names (Roxanne Gay, Carmen Maria Machado, Viet Thanh Nguyen, James McBride, Akil Sharma) and some less familiar names.
Thanks, Dan. Interesting. Three that I've read from the list - Carmen Maria Machado, Viet Thanh Nguyen and James McBride - were all excellent.
Yes a wonderful publisher strongly deserving our support. When one sees headlines lke this the concern is always that restricting authors to a subset (here female only) could dilute the quality given, by definition if the restriction means something, books that they might otherwise have published would not be.
But the quality of their output belies that. Notably of course from 2017 the stunning and Republic of Consciousness Prize longlisted Sorry to Disrupt the Peace which in any normal year (ie without Reservoir 13) woukd have been by book of the year. Exactly the sort of hard-hitting literature from a marginalised source that And Other Stories is set up to publish.
I think this is very good new. I don’t see a bias against women authors at all in this group or the Roundtable group so its easy to forget that the readers I communicate with are not representative of the industry or the award committees.
That’s lovely. I love Spark. I think I have each one and yet am tempted to try to get them all in this edition!
I would love to. The cost of shipping and the exchange rate of US dollar to pounds makes it even harder to rationalize buying books I already have. Although I only have three Sparks books.Do you plan on doing a podcast about Spark this year, Trevor?
hello everyone. can we have the whiting awards in a little subfolder? 7 queer people among the 10 winners. awesomejuice to me. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...
hey, now that i think of it, can we have a queer section? no, seriously.
You can definitely start a thread for the award in the “other awards” folder. I think that’d be great. As for a queer section, we don’t have sections for any specific genre or category, so I’m not inclined to start one. Very happy to set up a thread in the general books chat folder though.
Personally, I am not a fan of audiobooks because it takes too long to “read” one compared with actually reading it. But this article suggests they are having what we readers would class as a positive impact i.e. getting people reading who weren’t reading. What do you think?https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/me...
I dont know about other people, but I cant cope without using my eyes with reading. Also have not converted to kindles. Somehow I need to feel paper under my fingers
I joined GR, grudgingly, because Shelfari shut down. I wanted to get away from book groups because the one I had been part of rarely talked about books. It devolved into sharing recipes & griping about work & god help you if you didn't love a book someone loved. I came back to GR when I realized I needed GR for book recommendations. Fortunately, I found this group. The books read here have pulled me fully out of my reading box and it's been an exciting reading experience for me. I find it ironic that I've been made aware of the world of indie presses in the UK and, thanks to Trevor and Eric, some very promising US indie presses (I did several internet searches for US indie presses and not one of those popped up) on a site supported by Amazon.
I would add Twitter to a social media platform for discovering books & writers. I found Adelle Stripe's fictionalized bio of Andrea Dunbar, Black Teeth & a Brilliant Smile, on Twitter. I follow her because she often posted about Ben Myer & NW books.
Neil wrote: "Personally, I am not a fan of audiobooks because it takes too long to “read” one compared with actually reading it. But this article suggests they are having what we readers would class as a positi..."I am a fan of audiobooks and listen to them often, mostly at night when I'm in bed relaxing before sleep and also early in the AM before dawn. I have text editions available as well and often both read and listen to the book. You have to be aware you are placing an interpreter, the narrator, between you and the book and adjust for that interpreter's read of the book, which might not match your own interpretation, but we do that with translated fiction as well so i don't find it a problem. Some narrator's are better than others, so not every audiobook is listenable. On the other hand, I believe a good narrator can help the book. Stephen Fry and Jim Dale certainly seem integral to the Harry Potter phenomenon.
Increased audiobook listenership seems to be related to improved storage and delivery, and has been accompanied by some improvements in quality with more full cast dramatizations available.
Neil wrote: "Book block: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bo..."Fifty Shades of Grey? That tripe is hard to finish? What an odd article.
WndyJW wrote: "Neil wrote: "Book block: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bo..."Fifty Shades of Grey? That trip..."
Have you read it?
I have not read Fifty Shades of Grey. I did read the article.
I would like to read Gerard Munane. Ive only recently learned of him, it might have been this article. Actually I need to check abes, I thought I ordered one of his books.
Does anyone know of U.S. literary awards that are similar to Goldsmiths or Republic of Consciousness? I enjoy following along with the threads about those prizes here, but it's hard for me to aquire the books in time to participate.
The most exciting U.S. prize I know of is the BTBA, but this year has been a bit lackluster.
(Unrelated, but speaking of lackluster prizes, I greatly enjoyed this article about why the Wodehouse prize would not be awarded this year.)
The most exciting U.S. prize I know of is the BTBA, but this year has been a bit lackluster.
(Unrelated, but speaking of lackluster prizes, I greatly enjoyed this article about why the Wodehouse prize would not be awarded this year.)
Sara wrote: "Does anyone know of U.S. literary awards that are similar to Goldsmiths or Republic of Consciousness? I enjoy following along with the threads about those prizes here, but it's hard for me to aquir..."Take alook at the Carnegie medals for literature longlist which should be out in September if you are looking for recommendations.
There are also the various Pen Awards that have just recently passed.
Otherwise the big 3 are American Book Award, Book Critic's Circle, and Pulitzer.
Also the Kirkus Prize is relatively new, but i enjoyed their list last year and it wilp be also released in September
I meant more in terms of the type of books that Goldsmiths and RoC highlight.
Sometimes the Tournament of Books contains the kind of books I'm looking for, but usually by virtue of wanting to throw a wild card in there. There's also the Calvino Prize, which is very small and very specific. Same for the Kenneth Patchen Award.
Maybe when I win the lottery I'll make the literary award I'm looking for.
Sometimes the Tournament of Books contains the kind of books I'm looking for, but usually by virtue of wanting to throw a wild card in there. There's also the Calvino Prize, which is very small and very specific. Same for the Kenneth Patchen Award.
Maybe when I win the lottery I'll make the literary award I'm looking for.
Well, let's do it here, then. Post news of any kind that you think will be interesting. By news I mean forthcoming titles that are announced, author news, etc, but I also mean think pieces that might generate some nice discussion.
First up, I just saw that Eleanor Catton's next novel will be called Birnam Wood. It's to be delivered this December, so we won't see it for a while yet. The length? 80,000-100,000 words, or much less than half of The Luminaries.