Lady Chatterley’s Brother

The first ebook in the new TQC Long Essays series, Life Pereccalled “an exciting new project” by Chad Post of Open Letter and Three Percent. Why can't Nicholson Baker write about sex? And why can Javier Marias? We investigate why porn is a dead end, and why seduction paves the way for the sex writing of the future.

Available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and direct from this site:

Translate This Book!

Ever wonder what English is missing? Called "a fascinating Life Perecread" by The New Yorker, Translate This Book! brings together over 40 of the top translators, publishers, and authors to tell us what books need to be published in English. Get it on Kindle for 99 cents.

Spring 2011 Group Read

Life Perec

Spring Read: Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec

Starting March 2011, read the greatest novel from an experimental master. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.
For low prices on Las Vegas shows visit ShowTickets.com

Book Lists

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The Between Paren-theses Reading List


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Essential Oulipo Works


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20 Must-Read Poetry Books


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One-Paragraph and/or One-Sentence Books


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My Favorite Reads of 2010


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J.C. Hallman’s 10 Favorite Books of Creative Criticism


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Damion Searls’ Top Ten NYRB Classics


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Ten Essential Southern Novels


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What I've Read So Far in 2010


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Top 20 Spanish-Language Novels Written Since 1982


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The Greatest Fiction from Argentina


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Great Books of Austria-Hungary


New Books

Interesting New Books — 2010


You Say

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Interviews from Conversational Reading

New Books
See this page for interviews with leading authors, translators, publishers, and more.

Group Reads

Last Samurai

Fall Read: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

A group read of one of the '00s most-lauded postmodern novels. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.
Tale of Genji

The Summer of Genji

Two great online lit magazines team up to read a mammoth court drama, the world's first novel.
Your Face Tomorrow

Your Face This Spring

A 3-month read of Javier Marias' mammoth book Your Face Tomorrow

RSS New Articles

  • In Red by Magdalena Tulli December 5, 2011
    In Red is Tulli's most conventional novel—which is not to say it could finally be described as a conventional work of fiction. Still, to the extent it does offer individuated characters, some degree of plot "movement," and a strongly delineated setting, readers hesitant to commit to one of the novels that seems formidably experimental might fi […]
  • Show Up, Look Good by Mark Wisniewski December 5, 2011
    Early in Show Up, Look Good, Mark Wisniewski’s second novel, newly single Michelle meets up with an old friend, Barb, from the Midwest. Michelle has already been portrayed as a woman who attracts all variations of awkwardness and bad luck: she’s awakened to find her ex, Thom, “having his way, well, with a marital aid,” agreed to bathe an old woman as part of […]
  • An Ermine in Czernopol by Gregor von Rezzori December 5, 2011
    Gregor von Rezzori’s fictitious city Czernopol exists at the edge of civilization, on the border of memory and invention, lying “somewhere in the godforsaken southeastern part of Europe.” In reality it is Czernowitz, in the region known as the Bukovina, ceded by the Ottoman Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1775, then after World War I part of Romania […]
  • 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami December 4, 2011
    The publication of 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s biggest, most ambitious novel to date, seems to have brought his career full-circle. This is not simply because the book has widely been posited as Murakami’s Brothers Karamazov—that is, an attempt to write a meganovel summing up his life’s writing—but even more because of the trajectory Murakami has taken as a writ […]
  • Ordinary Sun by Matthew Henriksen December 4, 2011
    Ordinary Sun at times feels like listening to confession in a parallel universe, a world with all the guts displayed on the outside, and the underworld on top. Make no mistake though: there is no otherworld. Henriksen’s world is this world. Who doesn’t recognize her own kind in lines like these, from “Corolla in the Midden”: “I do not dream. I just watch / f […]
  • Selected Poems by Jaan Kaplinski December 4, 2011
    Though sometimes referred to as a Modernist, Kaplinski’s poetry often has the feel of a classical, and older, poetics. The poems have a gravitas; they do not mock, toy, or play with the reader. They invite the reader to eavesdrop on the thoughts, remembrances, and philosophy of a person as they flicker and flow. This contemplative, philosophic strain is pres […]
  • Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life by Lev Loseff December 4, 2011
    A martyr is not necessarily a saint, in any case, and those who knew him didn’t turn to him for saintliness. He was spellbinding, an electrical jolt for the psyche. An encounter with him, as a colleague or as a mentor, could be life-changing and endlessly rewarding. Warts and all, the real man carries far more interest than the photoshopped one Loseff gives […]
  • From Fiona and Ferdinand by Josef Haslinger December 4, 2011
    On the day of Bachmaier’s funeral there were two messages from my mother waiting for me on the answering machine. In the first one she asked me to call her back, in the second she said that the village was in an uproar: I was to come at once. Calls from my mother were rare. […]
  • Self-Portrait of an Other by Cees Nooteboom and Max Neumann December 4, 2011
    As hard as you look at it, Max Neumann’s paintings don’t reveal much about his method, but two recent English-language publications imply that he must enjoy collaborating with luminaries of world literature. AnimalInside, reviewed in The Quarterly Conversation's issue 25 by Christiane Craig, brought Neumann together with László Krasznahorkai, the presti […]
  • Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique by Gonçalo M. Tavares December 4, 2011
    Someone once noted that it’s easy to have virtue when facing adversity but the real test of character comes when one is given power. To test this aphorism, one need look no further than Gonçalo M. Tavares’ novel Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique for evidence of how power corrupts and attracts the corrupt. Tavares is a prolific writer from Portugal who […]

Reader Picks
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LINKS

Klimt
The Economist profiles an ongoing exhibition of artist Gustave Klimt‘s works

News

* Columbia University Press is offering up to 80% off their books. Buy some!

* Who says Americans are scared of translations? Knopf is printing 100,000 copies (or maybe it’s 25,000 if we’re to discount the typical print-run-inflation multiplier) of a Swedish trilogy

* USA Today reports on Zinio, a new service to let you read magazines digitally

* Granta has its first female editor

* The Million recruits Google to demonstrate the heaps of cliched prose to be found in book reviews

* And now you too can read an excerpt from Nabokov’s still-unburned (final) novel, The Original of Laura

Essays

* Caleb Crain takes on a Zogby poll discussed at BEA that means to tell us something about America’s changing reading habits

* Just in time for Bookforum’s cover story on political novels, The Guardian wonders whether political novels are dead

* Ian McEwan considers humankind’s predilection for declaring itself about to end

* Luc Sante gets devoured by books

* The LRB on Lorrie Moore, one of the few American short stories writers to meet with enviable success

Reviews

* The Guardian reviews Ismail Kadare‘s new novel, The Siege

* Following up on Rushdie’s take on former Pakistani ruler General Zia-ul-Haq (Shame), Mohammed Hanif gives us A Case of Exploding Mangoes, a novel covering Zia’s mysterious death and reviewed in The Guardian

* Quarterly Conversation contributor Scott Byran Wilson reviews All Saints by Christine Schutt for Rain Tazi

The Rest

* Michael Frayn and his new play are profiled at The Guardian

* Kawabata- and Banana Yoshimoto-translator Michael Emmerich is interviewed. Also see our interview with Emmerich.

* Nigel Beale interviews former Philly Inq books editor Frank Wilson

* At The Guardian, Gary Younge asks why the ’70s didn’t produce any lasting novels. I would argue that that decade did, and quite so. First on that list, of course, is Gravity’s Rainbow.

* An Inconvenient Truth continues its run through every form of presentation known to humanity. The latest incarnation is as an opera.

* I would suspect that marketing is behind this. But I’m a bit cynical.

* Everyone who thinks 800 words constitutes a novel say "laughing all the way to the bank"

* The Walrus runs free

More from Conversational Reading:

  1. Florida Review Duel Dan Green of The Reading Experience has given me the opportunity to review the NBA-nominated Florida (by Christine Schutt) with him as part of his...
  2. LINKS * An illustrated 14th-century guide to hunting is now being exhibited in NYC. The New York Times explains. * Think all these books breaking...
  3. LINKS * This is harsh. Not a good day to be Margaret B Jones Seltzer whatever. * The meaning and provenance of "the wonderful Russian nonword...
  4. LINKS News * Now you can display online what you’re reading, the exact page you’re on, and even the notes you take along the way...
  5. LINKS * 50 years after The Birthday Party first opened, The Guardian re-examine Pinter’s first play and discusses how he overcame overwhelmingly negative reviews to...

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June 3rd, 2008 | Category: links

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