|
||||||
|
|
 About a Mountain — Read ItShare Since I’m currently reading John D’Agata’s book-length essay, About a Mountain, for an upcoming review, I don’t want to say too much about it. But, I will recommend it most emphatically. Without in any way, shape, or form implying that a style as interesting as that which D’Agata has summoned . . . continue reading About a Mountain — Read It  An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should StealShare Last Friday I helped host the “bookswap” at San Francisco independent bookstore The Booksmith. (I also do a translated fiction reading group there; if you’re in town, think about joining us.) It’s something I think a lot of indie bookstore could learn a lot from, and I’ll explain why. . . . continue reading An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should Steal New Review in the LA TimesShare It’s not every day you review a Nobelist in your hometown paper: my review of Kenzaburo Oe’s The Changeling in this week’s LA Times Book Review. It’s a solid book, both different from and similar to other Oe I’ve read. Pass it on:  On Roth, Houellebecq, and HedonismShare Most of the time when I see something about Michel Houellebecq, I sigh deeply, read the first couple paragraphs, and then completely lose interest. He’s always seemed like the kind of writer that would interest me, but most of the criticism concerned with his writing tends to follow the same cliches . . . continue reading On Roth, Houellebecq, and Hedonism The Travails of TranslationShare I saw Erica Mena’s extremely generous take on an awful situation linked to at Constant Conversation, and I wanted to put it up here too:
 What African Fiction Is Good ForShare So Penguin is starting up a line of African fiction titles. Great news, right? Not according to Akin Ajayi in The Guardian, who says the first 5 titles are far too old to be useful, since none of them were published in the past 15 years. Matt Cheney has other thoughts. . . . continue reading What African Fiction Is Good For Recommended Books SidebarShare If you look to the left, you’ll see that I’ve put up a sidebar where I’ll occasionally be listing books that I’ve recently liked and am recommending. I’d like to try this out as another way to help readers of this site discover some of the books that I’ve recently found to be . . . continue reading Recommended Books Sidebar  Macedonio Fernandez Intro Serialized at Three PercentShare This week Three Percent is serializing Margaret Schwartz’s introduction to The Museum of Eterna’s Novel. I think this is well worth checking out, as Museum has to be one of the most interesting, most difficult new books I’ve seen in a while. “Difficult” gets thrown around way too often by . . . continue reading Macedonio Fernandez Intro Serialized at Three Percent  Read Marias As Quickly As PossibleShare That’s Andrew Seal’s advice for budding readers of Javier Marias:
 Against the Short Novel, Even When Don DeLillo Is the AuthorShare Lately I’ve been pushing Cesar Aira on people, which means I’m having a lot of conversations these days about how Americans don’t respect short novels. They’re insubstantial. They offend our sense of value, always measured by the gross poundage we get per dollar. Let’s just . . . continue reading Against the Short Novel, Even When Don DeLillo Is the Author |
|
|||
|
Copyright © 2010 Conversational Reading - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas
About a Mountain — Read It
An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should Steal
New Review in the LA Times
The Travails of Translation
What African Fiction Is Good For
Recommended Books Sidebar
You Say