some interesting-looking things shortlisted for the Goldsmith's Fiction Prize this year:
Kudos by Rachel Cusk (Faber)Murmur by Will Eaves (CB Editions)In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne (Headline)The Cemetery in Barnes by Gabriel Josipovici (Carcanet)Crudo by Olivia Laing (Faber)The Long Take by Robin Robertson (Picador)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/sep/26/novel-senses-of-new-the-2018-goldsmiths-prize-for-fiction-shortlist
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Friday, 28 September 2018 17:05 (six years ago) link
I'm interested in Murmer. I was interested in The Cemetery in Barnes too but I read a preview of it and that put me off slightly.
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Friday, 28 September 2018 17:06 (six years ago) link
I want to read Rachel Cusk but every time I pick up Outline I recoil anew at the inexplicable choice of Optima as a body font. Not to like shit on Zapf but it looks all wrong.
― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Friday, 28 September 2018 17:07 (six years ago) link
actually, more than slightly. it struck me as being quite artificially "refined" in a similar way to the dreaded Ishiguro. xpost
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Friday, 28 September 2018 17:11 (six years ago) link
i liked Murmur - a James Morrison recommendation. Just started Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (2016), which 20 pages in is really excellent. Tho i’m aware that the almost algorithmic arbitrary strangeness of the youngest thomas the tank engine board books might seem excellent after forbidden line by paul stanbridge (2016). in that list great to see dewitt (obv) & maggie nelson. also - cosign woof on satin island, which no matter how much tolerance you may be able to gen up by framing it in intentional cheapness (there’s a little wiggle room for that reading) was crap. Goon Squad, yes. i know it got mixed reviews from people on here, but i liked it. and i liked against the day, big messy and fun.
― Fizzles, Friday, 28 September 2018 18:50 (six years ago) link
oh and i do want to read cusk after that review in the lrb.
― Fizzles, Friday, 28 September 2018 18:52 (six years ago) link
josipovici i really react against in what is possibly an unfair way. i’ve only read everything passes and a bit of goldberg:variations. the first was quite striking in some respects - broken prose incantation (ie kind of looks like a poem on the page but isn’t). but it also seemed pompous - that is to say its manner suggested a high level of importance which was in the end it seemed to me as much if not more tonal than in terms of the subject matter. i wrote a little about it here. goldberg i couldn’t get on with at all. it seemed supremely and unjustifiably satisfied with its own cleverness. my response if it were a person would be “yes i suppose you are but the problem is i don’t like you very much”. i realise this is not good lit crit and i would like to break down exactly how that response is constituted in the text. but it will do for now.
― Fizzles, Friday, 28 September 2018 18:59 (six years ago) link
I like it.
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Friday, 28 September 2018 19:31 (six years ago) link
jeez i loved satin island wtf
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 00:49 (six years ago) link
really hated goon squad though especially the heavily footnoted chapter from the perspective of the bitter journalist who assaults someone. just a bunch of lazily-written short stories arbitrarily bent into each other
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 00:51 (six years ago) link
i guess i can see how satin island could be a little overweighted with cliché "deep" anthropological ideas but idk the writing was so good, i got pretty caught up in it
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 00:53 (six years ago) link
wow i hate most of the books on this vulture list lol
the line of beauty yes absolutely but the goldfinch uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 00:54 (six years ago) link
lol 1q84 i love lists that are just like "here are a bunch of books that came out in the past twenty years that had some kind of buzz around them but not necessarily any inherent value"
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 00:55 (six years ago) link
i agree that the goldfinch and 1q84 suck however I'm reading the last samurai thanks to that list and it's great
― na (NA), Saturday, 29 September 2018 01:48 (six years ago) link
I should clearly be recommending that book in more threads, more often.
― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Saturday, 29 September 2018 02:12 (six years ago) link
the last samurai does rule
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Saturday, 29 September 2018 02:34 (six years ago) link
MURMUR is wonderful, he repeats
The Long Take by Robin Robertson: this is interesting but not deserving of the praise it gets, and I say this as a devotee of the film noir movies it revels in. It's a novel in verse, but if ever there was some poetry that was just obviously prose with regular line breaks put in, it's this.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 29 September 2018 08:53 (six years ago) link
Murmur is phenomenal, I read it in one sitting on the beach but I keep casting my mind back to it. It's full of narrative tricks but they're only ever enhancing rather than undercutting the big thematic stuff and its (substantial) emotional heft.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 29 September 2018 11:53 (six years ago) link
I absolutely loved In Our Mad & Furious City as well, but a coming-of-age London novel full of grime music and racial/religious tensions was never not going to appeal to me, but the potential to have done something utterly cringeworthy and try-hard was vast and he manages to avoid all that entirely.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 29 September 2018 11:56 (six years ago) link
There is lots of good stuff in that Vulture list but plenty of eyeroll moments as well.
The inclusion of Mary Gaitskell's Veronica in there made me genuinely happy but everyone concerned should be embarrassed to appear in a list alongside Capital.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 29 September 2018 12:01 (six years ago) link
Just ordered Murmer on the back of those mentions.
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Saturday, 29 September 2018 14:46 (six years ago) link
or off the back?
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Saturday, 29 September 2018 14:47 (six years ago) link
I think it's "off the back"?
I realized that Edward St Aubyn wasn't on that list either which is, imo, another pretty bad omission for such an anglophile list.
I came across a copy of Dunbar, his entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare Series, "updating" King Lear which I'm looking forward to reading. Will also stan for Helen Dewitt's Lightning Rods. Did anyone read the collection of short stories she published earlier in the year?
― Federico Boswarlos, Tuesday, 2 October 2018 16:23 (six years ago) link
Yes! Pick 'em up. It'll make you believe in yourself.
― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Tuesday, 2 October 2018 16:31 (six years ago) link
Jesus christ, Murmur destroyed me. I read much of the last sections with my eyes itching with tears.
There's swathes of it I didn't understand but I'll get some thoughts together once I've pulled myself together!
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Monday, 8 October 2018 21:30 (five years ago) link
his best books came out in the '90s
― Number None, Monday, 8 October 2018 21:45 (five years ago) link
Mallarme's The Book has had its first complete translation!
http://exactchange.com/shop/mallarme-the-book/
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 October 2018 22:01 (five years ago) link
a friend of mine wrote a very well received (apparently radical) translation of (some of) Mallermé's poem's xyz. could be of interest to you:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/15/stephane-mallarme-poems-in-verse-review
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Monday, 8 October 2018 22:11 (five years ago) link
Thanks!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 October 2018 22:23 (five years ago) link
― Number None, Monday, October 8, 2018 10:45 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Controversial! I think Mother's Milk and At Last were the best of the Patrick Melrose books.
― Federico Boswarlos, Tuesday, 9 October 2018 16:54 (five years ago) link
it's controversial to think those are the best ones.
― FRE SHA VAC ADO (jed_), Tuesday, 9 October 2018 17:35 (five years ago) link
xyzzz and jed, thanks for both Mallarmé recs!
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 9 October 2018 17:39 (five years ago) link
Lol, no it's not but it does seem like his reputation and recent popularity (fwiw) over the last 5-6 years hinge more on his recent work.
― Federico Boswarlos, Tuesday, 9 October 2018 19:05 (five years ago) link
seems like a good list https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/pa5b7m/best-books-2018-poetry-short-stories
― flopson, Thursday, 15 November 2018 21:46 (five years ago) link
maybe i just want to read The Incendiaries
― flopson, Thursday, 15 November 2018 21:48 (five years ago) link
That intro paragraph is pretty self-congratulatory given the list features only American writers. (Although, tbf, one of them lives part of the time in Canada)
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 16 November 2018 01:04 (five years ago) link
Not sure where to put this so
This is my favourite thing on Twitter today. It’s beautiful! pic.twitter.com/BbUCgI8H5e— Bethany Black (@BeffernieBlack) February 10, 2019
― Norm’s Superego (silby), Monday, 11 February 2019 01:05 (five years ago) link
Lol
― Only a Factory URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 11 February 2019 01:37 (five years ago) link
:D
― imago, Monday, 11 February 2019 07:14 (five years ago) link
some very good looking things here. v interested in the two Joyce-related books, Lucia and Dedalus.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 5 March 2019 22:26 (five years ago) link
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/republic-of-consciousness-prize-2019-longlist/
They announced the shortlist in the last day or two, in case you missed it - both the Joyce-related things made it through. https://www.thebookseller.com/news/shortlist-unveiled-republic-consciousness-prize-small-presses-965176
It does look a good list, I'm looking forward to reading the Lord Kitchener one, and I'm very pleased for the Henningham Family Press people, who I've run into once or twice and who seem like righteous folk.
― Tim, Tuesday, 5 March 2019 23:33 (five years ago) link
I did miss it, thanks Tim.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 5 March 2019 23:39 (five years ago) link
That's a badly written article!
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 5 March 2019 23:50 (five years ago) link
Haha I didn’t even read past the list.
― Tim, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 00:03 (five years ago) link
The Wendy Erskine stories are v good.
― FernandoHierro, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 07:42 (five years ago) link
NYRB:Uwe Johnson - AnniversariesVarlam Shamalov - Kolyma Tales
Penguin:Dag Solstad - Armand V/T SingerSvetlana Alexivech - THe Unwomanly Face of War
Other Publishers:Wolfgang Hilbig -The Tidings of the Trees/The FemalesHelen DeWitt - Some TrickGerald Murnane - The PlainsEmily Wilson - The Odyssey
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 21 January 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Adding these as notable new releases. Penguin have been doing good by euro/foreign fiction:
Pavese - The Beautiful SummerViolette Leduc - The Lady and the Little Fox Fur
Lots and lots from New Directions:
Dasa Drndic: https://www.ndbooks.com/author/dasa-drndic/Natalia Ginzburg: https://www.ndbooks.com/author/natalia-ginzburg/Two new Hrabals: https://www.ndbooks.com/author/bohumil-hrabal/
NYRB have put out
Serge's Notebooks is probably the most interesting they've put out this year (but that's just me lol): https://www.nyrb.com/products/notebooks?variant=7060384055348
As to what is forthcoming this is an interesting collection:
https://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/the-storyteller-essays?variant=9273236586548
Genet: https://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/criminal-child?variant=14170567049268
Musil: https://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/agathe-or-the-forgotten-sister?variant=14728883109940
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 June 2019 10:23 (five years ago) link
As for Archipelago I am quite looking forward to these Onetti short stories, the guy is due a revival:
https://archipelagobooks.org/book/a-dream-come-true/
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 June 2019 10:26 (five years ago) link
In terms of re-issues I haven't read I'll get this:
https://www.andotherstories.org/tamarisk-row/
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 June 2019 10:58 (five years ago) link