Recommendations

  • More from the NBCC Awards March 14, 2010
    With jokes from Joyce Carol Oates and "wild imaginings" from 92-year-old winner Diana Athill -- not to mention talk of a sequel from "Wolf Hall" author Hilary Mantel -- this year's NBCC Awards were noteworthy for their celebration of literature by women. […]
    Matt Jakubowski
  • Broom of the System Gets Cover Makeover, Plus One Cover I Love and One I Hate March 14, 2010
    DFW's latest cover makeover, plus a great-looking cover and a really not-so-great-looking cover. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Rereading Wallace Stevens March 14, 2010
    Since buying The Selected Poems of Wallace Stevens at City Lights, I’ve been rereading many Stevens poems and trying to understand it from a more mature perspective.  Last time I read a vast amount of Stevens was when I was 22 for a class on Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, and Marianne Moore.  With fifteen years [...] […]
    Soo Jin Oh
  • Best Translated Book Award 2010 March 14, 2010
    The 2010 Best Translated Book Awards were announced last night at Idlewild Books, Manhattan. The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven, translated by Dalya Bilu won the fiction award, and the poetry award went to Elena Fanailova for The Russian Version, translated from the Russian by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler. Check out the [...] […]
    Jeff Waxman
  • NBCCA March 14, 2010
    The National Book Critics Circle Award is announcing their winners tonight.  The diversity of their nominations, from the better known (such as Hilary Mantel and Mary Karr) to the less mainstream (such as Rachel Zucker and Eula Biss), makes the blog entries on the nominees an interesting read.  I added Stephen Burt’s Close Calls with [...] […]
    Soo Jin Oh
  • Different Ways of Translating al-Khamissi March 14, 2010
    Translator Jonathan Wright said last night that he felt, for the English-language reader, "religious references [in Arabic literature] are in general problematic." […]
    M Lynx Qualey
  • Dear Camera: Bees and Poems. “An accidental moltingâ€� March 14, 2010
    Poems and Paintings by Salena Gerdes and Joseph P. Wood in the newest issue of Dear Camera […]
    Carrie Olivia Adams
  • Norwegian Wood Film Adaptation March 14, 2010
    Haruki Murakami’s breakout novel, Norwegian Wood, is being made to a film. But wait! There’s more! It’s being scored by Radiohead. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Out of Print, Out of Mind March 14, 2010
    To mark the one-year anniversary of his outstanding literary webzine, The Second Pass, editor John Williams asked a whole bunch of reading folks to wax on about their favorite OP titles. […]
    Jeff Waxman
  • “It is one of the hardest days of the year to bear. Truly a memorable 10th of March,â€� or, Time travel with Thoreau March 14, 2010
    Despite Eliot's oft-quoted line about April, we all know that March is really the cruelest month, refusing to set us free of winter's bleakness even as it tantalizes us with hints of spring. This year however, Thoreau's journals in hand, I've decided to choose my own March. […]
    Levi Stahl

About Conversational Reading and Scott Esposito

About Conversational Reading and Scott Esposito

Scott Esposito is a critic, writer, and editor. Some of his publications and clients include:

  • The San Francisco Chronicle
  • The Philadelphia Inquirer
  • The Los Angeles
  • The Barnes and Noble Review
  • The Los Angeles Daily News
  • The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  • Publishers Weekly
  • The Chattahoochee Review
  • The Review of Contemporary Fiction
  • Dalkey Archive Press
  • The Rain Taxi Review of Books
  • eMusic
  • Publishers Group West
  • Houghton-Mifflin/Harcourt
  • The National Book Critics Circle
  • University of Texas Press

Scott created his literary weblog, Conversational Reading, in August 2004. Since its inception, the site has been discussed in and linked to from various publications and websites, including:

  • The New Yorker
  • The New York Times
  • AndrewSullivan.com
  • The Boston Globe
  • The Village Voice
  • Variety magazine

Conversational Reading has featured contributions by and interviews with various authors and publishers. In Early 2009, the site ran a popular interview series on publishing in an economic recession, which included editors from New Directions and Chelsea Green Publishing.

In the Fall of 2005, The Quarterly Conversation was created as an adjunct to Conversational Reading. Since then, it has grown into a stand-alone publication.

The Quarterly Conversation is a quarterly web magazine of book reviews and essays. It is dedicated to covering new and innovative works of literature and often features titles from independent presses and works in translation. The site draws from a pool of roughly 40 contributors who regularly contribute to literary journals, have authored novels, and have edited and been published in anthologies. Pieces that first appeared in The Quarterly Conversation have been reprinted in newspapers and books, including in the yearly anthology Best of the Web.

Most issues of The Quarterly Conversation feature 20 book reviews, several essays, and interviews. The site also publishes material in between issues.

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