15 Favorites of 2015

 

The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel

   

The Apex Book of World SF 4, edited by Mahvesh Murad

Books to Look For (December): Literary Fiction

 




The Heart of Man by John Kalman Stefansson  (MacLehose Press, December 22)

Random Recommendation Guest Post: The Satyricon by Petronius

This recommendation comes from the "Nerds of a Feather" blog. Check it out here, and follow along on twitter @nerds_feather.


The Satyricon (1st c. AD) by Petronius

"The Satyricon is a classic of comedy, a superbly funny picture of Nero's Rome as seen through the eyes of Petronius, its most amorous and elegant courtier. William Arrowsmith's translation—a lively, modern, unexpurgated text—recaptures all the ribald humor of Petronius's picaresque satire. It tells the hilarious story of the pleasure-seeking adventures of an educated rogue, Encolpius, his handsome serving boy, Giton, and Ascyltus, who lusts after Giton—three impure pilgrims who live by their wits and other men's purses. The Satyricon unfailingly turns every weakness of the flesh, every foible of the mind, to laughter."

Books to Look For (December): Biography/Autobiography

Prof: Alan Turing Decoded (The History Press, 320 pages, December 1)

Review: The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel

The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel (William Morrow, 292 pages, October 13)

You don't have to know anything about Montreal or the Hasidim and hipsters who live there to enjoy Mystics; you don't have to know anything about Kabbalah or the Trees of Knowledge and Life to love Mystics; you don't even need to understand Yiddish or the importance of becoming a Bat Mitzvah to become entranced by Mystics. All you need is the love of a good story.

Review: The Apex Book of World SF 4, edited by Mahvesh Murad

 


Review on the Speculative Fiction in Translation site

Review: Biogenesis by Tatsuaki Ishiguro, translated by Brian Watson and James Balzer

 


Review on the Speculative Fiction in Translation site

Rachel's Random Recommendation #51: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson

I first read this collection of linked short stories about a small, midwestern town back when I was in college, and it was revelatory. Anderson expertly draws out the frustrations, desires, and ambitions that are both fostered in and constricted by small town living, and he does it with the quiet elegance reminiscent of Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. If you haven't read Winesburg yet, you'd better get to it.

In Translation: November Fiction and Poetry

Well, it’s November, and here in the U.S. that means Thanksgiving and holiday shopping. So what better way to pass the time while your relatives tell the same old boring stories and drag you to the mall to do the same old boring shopping than with some awesome fiction and poetry in translation from Austria, Spain, Estonia, and Serbia?! You know what, I even give you permission to read at the table during Thanksgiving dinner. You’re welcome.


Fata Morgana by Svetislav Basara, translated by Randall Major (Dalkey Archive Press, 210 pages November 27, 2015, Series: Serbian Literature)

From Serbian author and ambassador Svetislav Basara comes a collection of stories that respect no rules of time or space. Centered on the life of one writer during the communist and post-communist periods in the former Yugoslavia, Fata Morgana explores the impact of civil war and issues of mortality.

Happy Bookish Birthday To Me

Husband: “Honey what do you want for your birthday.”
Me: “Three hours to read at a cafe by myself.”
Husband: “No, really, what do you want.”
Me: “THAT. THAT IS WHAT I WANT. GIVE ME THAT.”
Husband (frightened by my look of crazed craziness): “FINE. Fine. Ok.”

That, my friends, was the conversation you would have heard in the Cordasco household about a week before my birthday. I mean, it’s not really that hard to come up with a gift for me, since I broadcast all the time my love of books, chocolate, books, opera, crafting, and books. (Now, for instance, when my mom asks “do you want me to send you chocolate for your birthday” the question is just so ridiculous, I cry “no NO why would you send me chocolate I never eat the stuff eeww ewww how dare you send me something so deliciously wonderful” etc. etc.).

Kids Should Read Whatever They Want, Whenever They Want

Time and again, I’ve come across scenes in novels where a young character is wandering around a library, whether personal or public, entranced by the endless possibilities offered by the books. These characters aren’t sure where to start, so they choose a book at random, and go from there.

Scenes like this occur in such works as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Black Boy, Dirty River, and The Book Thief, suggesting that discovery through reading is a universal experience, one that enables readers to imagine other lives and other worlds. To me, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Dear Sylvia Plath

Dear Sylvia Plath,

you would have been 83 years old today (it’s my birthday, too) had you not committed suicide because you were tired of fighting relentless clinical depression and bipolar disorder. I note that we share a birthday to cite just one of the reasons why I feel a kinship with you. Other reasons include the fact that I discovered your work when I myself was going through a particularly rough patch in my teenage years; and that around the same time, I started writing poetry.

I must admit that I’d never heard of you before my junior year of high school, and I only discovered you because I was browsing the poetry section of a local independent bookstore (since closed, unfortunately). Up until that year, I’d been uninterested in poetry, pouring all of my reading energy into novels (especially “classics”). Then I was randomly placed in a poetry-writing class for an elective and something clicked in my brain.