Tournament of Books discussion
Non-TOB books and chat
message 51:
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Sarah
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Jan 17, 2016 09:13AM
Poingu, do you have a list of books in translation--a kind of top 10, that you could offer here? I'm not talking about Kundera or Marquez but titles that are under the radar for English language-centric readers like, um, me?
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Sarah wrote: "Poingu, do you have a list of books in translation--a kind of top 10, that you could offer here? I'm not talking about Kundera or Marquez but titles that are under the radar for English language-ce..."Sarah I think we're in the same boat. Until lately it felt like I knew one author per country and it was like that author took up all the space in my brain for that country. Marquez for Columbia. Murakami for Japan. Achebe and just lately Adichie for Nigeria. I see you're reading Mahfouz who seems to be the best known Egyptian writer in the west. I haven't read any Egyptian authors at all, though.
Anyway if I were to think of a little sampler of books that expanded my thinking about international novels/novels in translation, these would be some I'd recommend. Not a top 10 by any means but a very interesting bunch of books, mostly short, all wonderful, and different from normal north american fare, for sure.
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas(Norway)
Someone to Run With by David Grossman (Israel)
Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo (Finland)
Out by Natsuo Kirino (Japan)
Five Spice Street by Can Xue (China)
Signs Preceding the End of the World (Mexico)
The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers (most popular book in East Germany for decades and now largely forgotten)
Loving Sabotage by Amelie Nothomb (set in China, written originally in French, by a Belgian author)
Fatelessness by Imre Kertész (Hungary) (Kertesz is a Nobel winner and this novel is loosely based on his experience as a young man surviving the Holocaust, but even if you think you've read enough, this is an amazing, very different novel)
Man Tiger: A Novel by Eka Kurniawan (an alt.tob book, it totally got me energized to learn more about works in translation)
Thanks so much! Can't wait to dig in...
If I can contribute to poingu's list:Anything by Pascal Garnier (France)
Tristano Dies: A Life, by Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
The Black Tongue, by Marko Hautala (Finland)
The Folly, by Ivan Vladislavić (South Africa)
Smaller and Smaller Circles, by F.H. Batacan (Philippines)
The New Sorrows of Young W., by Ulrich Plenzdorf (Germany)
Anything by Fredrik Backman (Sweden)
For They Have Sown the Wind: A Novel, by Alessandro Perissinotto (Italy)
The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption, by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko (Zimbabwe)
I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. I think most of these are works in translation, but at least a couple were written in English.
i have to offer up a canadian plug for some awesome french writerly talent! :)a french-canadian translator i love is Sheila Fischman. some of her really outstanding works include: Ru and Mãn (by the wonderful Kim Thúy - vietnamese-canadian). fischman has a fairly great catalogue!
as well, Jocelyne Saucier is a wonderful french-canadian author -- most recently: And the Birds Rained Down, and Twenty-One Cardinals (rhonda mullins is the translator).
if you can find them in the US (or other places outside of canada), i highly recommend these authors.
Jennifer wrote: "i have to offer up a canadian plug for some awesome french writerly talent! :)."Jennifer, do you have an opinion of Gaétan Soucy? I've had The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches on my shelf for a while.
Deborah wrote: "If I can contribute to poingu's list:Anything by Pascal Garnier (France)
Tristano Dies: A Life, by Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
[book:The Black Tongue|..."
wow, thanks, Deborah, this is great!
I learned of something fabulous in a recent comment posted at "The Guardian": "...New Yorker magazine podcasts where their published authors read a short story written by another [New Yorker] author and then discuss the story."
http://www.newyorker.com/series/ficti...
Before I even opened the link, I closed my eyes and thought, "Oh, I hope they have a Grace Paley story. Or Tom Drury (my current infatuation). Or Lorrie Moore.
I clicked on the link, and sure enough, there they all were! Here's just a taste:
Antonya Nelson reads Tom Drury
George Saunders reads Grace Paley and Barry Hannah
Jhumpa Lahiri reads William Trevor
Gary Shteyngart reads Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore Reads Julie Hayden
I've died and gone to heaven. These podcasts are going to wreak serious havoc on my reading schedule.
Lljones wrote: "I learned of something fabulous in a recent comment posted at "The Guardian": "...New Yorker magazine podcasts where their published authors read a short story written by another [New Yorker] aut..."
Yes, the New Yorker has some great podcasts.
poingu wrote: "Jennifer, do you have an opinion of Gaétan Soucy...i read Atonement years ago (read it in french and loved it, but need to reread it and i am (of course) curious about the translation to english by fischman), and have Vaudeville! on my bookshelf. fischman did the translation of the book you linked as well (i haven't read this one yet), so i would go for it! :)
Lljones wrote: "I learned of something fabulous in a recent comment posted at "The Guardian": "...New Yorker magazine podcasts where their published authors read a short story written by another [New Yorker] aut..."
Lljones, one of my favorite readings in the collection is Mary Gaitskill reading Symbols and Signs by Nabokov. I'd never heard of it or read any of his short fiction.
The True Deceiver was selected by my f2f book club. It looks interesting and I'm looking forward to reading it later this year.
poingu wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Poingu, do you have a list of books in translation--a kind of top 10, that you could offer here? I'm not talking about Kundera or Marquez but titles that are under the radar for Engli..."Troll, Out, and Man Tiger are the only ones on Poingu's list that I've read but I loved all three of them. All fairly disturbing but I seem to have developed a fondness for disturbing books in my old age.
Halfway through Negroland: A Memoir and to use a cliche, it's ripping my heart out. She has a way of just simply stating what happened and it subtly gives me pain, pain, and more pain. I am very impressed so far. I think when subtle is done well, it is amazingly powerful. It actually reminds me of the Elena Ferrante books because of the simple statements about what happened that just draw me in emotionally. Although, Negroland is so much more painful.I also feel that she is letting us all in on a secret America. At least it was a secret to me. (and/or I was oblivious).
Breaking News: Latest book by Ann Patchett, Commonwealth, will be published in September!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I was seriously depressed to not find her on the various lists of upcoming books for 2016. I now have a reason to live again.
(See Notes from Ann at Parnassus Books.)
Didn't know where to post this, but GR finally has 'reread' as an option:https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/8...
last night i finished reading Grace by natashia deón. it was an incredible read for me, and now i am wishing it had more attention last year. has anyone else read grace?
Replying to get this back on the first page of threads - this could be a place to discuss older non-ToB books you think are worth bringing to the attention of this group!
Ayy! Look at this thread. Looks great. Granted, the two I was going to talk about were TOB-adjacent...So anyway - I just finished Luster. What a damn ride that one was. And earlier this month, during spring break, I got the longlister Seven Steeples in. That was a pretty slow, contemplative book that read a whole lot better after my 6 and 8 year olds were in bed and not running around shouting about Roblox.
Kyle wrote: "Ayy! Look at this thread. Looks great. Granted, the two I was going to talk about were TOB-adjacent...So anyway - I just finished Luster. What a damn ride that one was. And earlie..."
YES to both of these. I loved them both in as different a way as possible. I read Steeples at exactly the right time -- the very end of the year, when I was exhausted and just needed ... peace.
So sad that we have lost Paul Auster and won’t have anything new coming from him. The good news is that he created for us a wonderful backlist.
Raise your hand if you have read (or even heard of) the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction novel Night Watch or its author Jayne Ann Phillips. I sure haven’t - shows what I know.
Phyllis wrote: "Raise your hand if you have read (or even heard of) the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction novel Night Watch or its author Jayne Ann Phillips. I sure haven’t - shows what I know."I did, and I read it, and I really liked it.
It was on the National Book Award fiction longlist this past fall.
Phyllis, raising my hand here. :-) Jayne Anne Phillips has been on my radar since Lark and Termite in 2009, which was a five-star read for me and also won the NBCC Award for fiction. I was excited when she came out with Night Watch after what I believe was a long spell of silence. I listened to the audio of Night Watch and felt like I got bogged down in the last third or so of the book. I liked the characters and themes, but there were more timelines and POV characters than I could keep up with on audio. I’m pretty sure I would have had a better reading experience with the paper edition.
It's apparently so under the radar that it's not among the top 5 "Night Watch"es on Goodreads. Granted, that Terry Pratchett Night Watch is a great one....
I also read it because it was on the NBA long list. I thought it wasn’t that great!
I read Lark and Termite in 2010 but don’t really trust what I wrote on Goodreads. I was going to read Night Watch when it was on the NBA list but didn’t get around to it. Now maybe I will. I have Wednesday’s Child because it was part of Parnassus First Editions Club. I also really want to read the Park book. To me it seems like a potentially good group of books.
Never heard of it but was able to nab the audiobook as soon as it won so I'm listening to it now.
I was excited for it, but then I think it got some pretty mediocre-to-negative reviews so it dropped down by TBR tower. This win, however, may move it up a few, though I don't always agree with the Pulitzer folks.
Ditto what Jan said about Lark and Termite and the author! Night Watch has been on my "wishlist-desperate" shelf since I heard it was coming. Very excited to read it!
Somehow, I completely missed the fact that the Pulitzers were announced this week, and wasn't reading this thread very carefully, so I couldn't understand why everyone was suddenly talking about Jayne Anne Phillips. I was definitely aware of her -- she's relatively local (I think she may still be teaching at Rutgers?) and I had read Lark and Termite when it came out. I wasn't wildly impressed, but I did go to hear her read and enjoyed meeting her. I have to acknowledge that at the time, I didn't realize there were two, ahem, contemporary authors named "Jayne Anne" and had conflated her with Jayne Anne Krentz -- who is, er, somewhat different.Anyway, I'll have to get hold of Night Watch. Maybe after I finish the TWENTY LIBRARY BOOKS that I brought home in a feeding frenzy.
I think you are correct about Rutgers -- here is a nice tribute from one of her former MFA students there: https://lithub.com/in-praise-of-pulit...
Ok I finished Night Watch and do not know how that won. It was...ok. In that genre of Civil War book, I think Cold Mountain was much better.
Eric Karl Anderson did a scathing review yesterday (and he never does scathing reviews.) He said he was actually angry it won.I think sometimes these awards are lifetime achievement awards, though, and often the book chosen is far from the best of that author's work. Phillips has written some well-received books (although I didn't really like the 2 I've read from her), and maybe hasn't gotten the attention she deserves till now.
I'll give it some affection. It gave me a lot to think about life right after the war. How so many men were traumatized from the experience and had physical and psychological scars. And how that in turn affected the women and children. I grew to really care for ConaLee and her mother over the course of the book. I was invested in the outcome. It did take me a while to get into it. I haven't read Wednesday's Child, so can't speak to that, however I did read Same Bed Different Dreams and if I had to choose between two books to win I would pick SBDD. However, I certainly don't think Night Watch is a bad book by any stretch.
It's not BAD but the expectation was set high with that prize and I just think that type of story (which I find pretty facinating) has been told better by others.
Audra wrote: "It's not BAD but the expectation was set high with that prize and I just think that type of story (which I find pretty facinating) has been told better by others."I saw you said Cold Mountain was much better IYO. I'm interested in reading it now!
I really like the movie too, or remember liking it then seeing it again it had moments of being corny, but I still like it.* insert Nicole Kidman in black hat here*
Not really sure where to post this, so I'll try here. If any of you good folks are going to be at the Portland Book Festival Saturday and would like to connect, give me a shout.
Tim wrote: " If any of you good folks are going to be at the Portland Book Festival Saturday...."Notes from the 2024 Portland Book Festival.
(Including some authors who might make the Tournament.)
I was at the Rachel Kushner and Danzy Senna panel. Unlike the Mendocino Coast Writers' Conference, Rachel Kushner only read a couple of paragraphs from her new book (5 min? Very brief). But she was excited to talk about it. One gets the sense that she's a closet journalist; =Creation Lake= was inspired by true events (and like her last novel) addressing issues of contemporary import. I haven't read it yet, but she said she had been reading =Pale Fire= right before writing it, and that may have been a partial inspiration. (She was more lively than the last time I saw her in Portland.)
Danzy Senna talked a little bit about the tribulations of being a novelist in LA. ("Oh, you are a writer, have I seen any of your work?" No, I write novels. "Have any of your novels been made into anything?" Yes! Books! They've been made into books!) At her University, she says the Literature Faculty talk to each other about TV shows. (But in Portland, at least, she was speaking to a full house about books.) For the die-hard Percival Everett fans reading this (you know who you are!), she said there were scenes in the novel inspired by autobiographical events.... You'll have to figure those out for yourself. (But it is not an autobiographical story.)
It was with some trepidation that I sat in on a panel with Brian Evenson and Stephen Graham Jones. I haven't read their work, and I don't generally read in their genre, but I somehow found myself at there. The moderator was pretty terrible: where do you get your ideas? What are your writing rituals? Etc. (Not "why do you find yourself drawn to horror as a form for expressing your ideas?") But both Brian Evenson and Stephen Graham Jones made the best of it, and gave us an interesting hour anyhow. Brian on ideas: I have more ideas than I know what to do with, that's probably why I'm drawn to short stories. Stephen Graham Jones: I try to pick the dumbest ideas to work on to force myself to improve as a writer. Brian on writing rituals: For a while I tried to write only using hotel pens I picked up on my travels, but once the pandemic hit.... Stephen Graham Jones: Writing rituals are an excuse for not writing. If you have an elaborate ritual, then if anything isn't exactly right, you have an excuse not to write. Both writers listened to music while they were writing - Stephen Graham Jones said he made a playlist to go with each work, and he listened to the same songs in the same order (no shuffle play) each time he sat down to work. He said doing that helped him slip back into the mood of the story - he didn't have to do any warm up work. Not the music you think, btw - no death metal or grindcore: Cher (among others).
A couple of other random notes from that session:
SGJ: When I get bored, I kill someone. (We presume he means that literarily, not literally)
SGJ on writing advice: When doing your research, don't write anything down. Let it build an impression that comes out in your writing. No one wants to read your notecards.
SGJ: Preserve the sharp corners of your story because the world will try to round them off.
SGJ: I love flash fiction - it's already ending from the very first word.
(It looks like I found SGJ more quotable than BE, but I enjoyed listening to them both.)
I also went to hear Julia Phillips and Willy Vlautin. Willy Vlautin is particularly entertaining, in his down-home, folksy, and self-deprecating way. Definitely go hear him if you get a chance. They both talked about the use of a close 3rd person for their novels, for similar reasons. Julia Phillips: It lets me highlight the differences between what my character experiences and what she thinks she experiences. Willy Vlautin: With 3rd person, you don't know the protagonist right away.
Vlautin also talked about music vs. writing. With writing, you can screw up hundreds of times, as long as you get it right once. With music, you can always find a bar somewhere to take you. And: When people don't like my writing, I say of course I can't write. I'm a musician. And when the music isn't going well, what did you expect, I'm a writer....
Julia Phillips was calling out some of the works she liked and gave a shout out to and enthused about a book "...I can't pronounce it. It is spelled C-H-O-U-E-T-T-E, by [our own!] Claire Oshetsky"
(And on the owl theme, in a not obviously book-related moment, I was in a session where I got to meet Hans, a Eurasian Eagle Owl. Not very literary, but very impressive, and surprisingly well behaved in a small, crowded theater.)
p.s.: Bryn - we missed you!
I really wanted to go. Mostly I’m very happy I moved to Blacksburg but there are moments….You should read Creation Lake. The spy story, the guy they all worshipped. I liked it much more than Mars Room.
I still haven’t read Willy Vlautin but I’m a fan of his music. The Delines play in Portland now and then.
I loved Disappearing Earth. Will get to her second book.
It is pretty funny to me that Senna said portions of “colored television“ were inspired by real-life events. As I was reading it, whenever the couple were talking to each other, I could not help but imagine Danzy and Percival as the actors in the conversation.
Tim wrote: "Tim wrote: " If any of you good folks are going to be at the Portland Book Festival Saturday...."Notes from the 2024 Portland Book Festival.
(Including some authors who might make the Tournament..."
CHOUETTE!! CHOUETTE!!! Go Chouette!
On another note, anyone else finding it annoying that GR removed e-mail notifications? I think I even had to check a box for notifications WITHIN GR (the bell icon at the top) for something that I was already getting updates for... so everyone be wary of what you actually want to see notifications for.
looking to read something to escape from the horror show of current events I went to the bookstore and found a used copy of Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. First, not the book to take your mind off current events. I had no idea.
Second, it's explaining another reality that exists in this country that I willfully ignored, assumed was niche, and hoped would eat itself alive before it ever got to me. My blood pressure rises and my depression broadens with each subsequent page. It's prying my eyes open and I can't look away. I hope there's some hope in it in the second half. I'm not optimistic tho.
I may sound like an idiot here, but I just realized that ThriftBooks is printing new books through the CreateSpace Amazon publisher -- or, at least buying them from Amazon and reselling them to the public. Do people generally know this? I thought they were a legit seller until I noticed the front pages are weird. Does Amazon own TB? I try to buy as thrifty as I can, so I'm always looking for alternative booksellers. Has anyone else found a seller they like? World of Books, Book Outlet, Book Woman Shop, Blackwell's, Ebay? As much as I hate to, I'm going to have to sever our business ties, but I need another seller first. 🫤
Betterworldbooks.com has been a favorite online discount books option of mine for many years. I hope it works for you!
Tournament of Books
Books mentioned in this topic
The Float Test (other topics)Long Island Compromise (other topics)
Woodworking (other topics)
Fagin the Thief (other topics)
The Möbius Book (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ann Patchett (other topics)Elena Ferrante (other topics)
Gaétan Soucy (other topics)
Antonio Tabucchi (other topics)
Pascal Garnier (other topics)
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