An Absolutely Serious Analysis of CLICK, CLACK, MOO

I recently took my kids for their yearly check-up and the pediatrician gave them each a new book: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type and The Ant and the Big Bad Bully Goat. Of course, I was pleased. I mean, FREE BOOKS.

We took them home and I read them aloud to my boys. And wow the disappointment. I mean, Click, Clack, Moo, has so many problems. What a terrible book. I decided to write a critical analysis of it here on Book Riot to explain why I was so irritated by this supposed classic.

Happy “Women in Translation” Month!

August is “Women in Translation Month” (#WITMonth), and we should thank Meytal Radzinski (@Biblibio) for hosting and promoting this awareness effort on her blog.

As Meytal notes (and I myself have tweeted and written), a disproportionately small number of books in English translation are by women (and the numbers for sci-fi in particular? It’s pretty depressing). So in this post, I’m going to do my part to encourage more translations of women writers by listing a cross-section of those books by women that have been translated into English (or newly-released in paperback) this year.

So You Want to “Read Deeply"?

I’ve been on a tear lately against all of those people who claim that the internetz are destroying our ability to read books. Because puhlease.

And I started wondering what these people thought they meant when they bemoaned our supposed inability to engage in “deep reading.” What is “deep reading?” Well, here’s how a recent Time article put it (warning: nonsense up ahead)

"slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity — [it] is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words… A book’s lack of hyperlinks, for example, frees the reader from making decisions — Should I click on this link or not? — allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative."

Ok, ok, if people are so concerned about our abandonment of “deep reading,” I have a few helpful suggestions for how to keep this practice going:

Random Recommendation Guest Post: He, She and It by Marge Piercy

This recommendation comes from Shaina. Check out her blog and follow her on twitter @shainareads.

He, She and It (1991) by Marge Piercy

"In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions--and the ability to kill....From the imagination of Marge Piercy comes yet another stunning novel of morality and courage, a bold adventure of women, men, and the world of tomorrow. "

Rachel's Random Recommendation #49: Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature

Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature (1999) ed. Robert Irwin

"Spanning the fifth to sixteenth centuries and societies that range from Afghanistan to Spain, this anthology is a testament to the astonishing grandeur and variety of classical Arabic literature. ...In Night & Horses & the Desert we encounter the dashing Byronic poetry of Imru’ al-Qays and a treatise on bibliomania by Al-Jahiz, possibly the only writer to have been killed by books. There’s a sorcerer’s manual from 11th century Spain and an allegory by the mysterious “Brethren of Purity,” in which animals argue their case against humanity. Encompassing piety and profanity, fables and philosophy, this volume is a thrilling and invaluabe introduction to one of the world’s great bodies of literature."

Book to Look For (August): History

    

From the TBR Shelf #47: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982) by Stephen King

I've been a hard-core Stephen King fan for a while now, but somehow never got around to his Dark Tower series. I'm changing that now by listening to the audiobooks each night, and between the often exhilarating prose and the narrator's dynamic reading, I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience.

For those of you who haven't yet read this series, I'll try to summarize the plot, but that might be difficult since I'm still trying to process it. So in the world of the novel, the characters live in a time after "the world moved on," whatever that means, and Roland Deschain of Gilead is chasing "the man in black," whoever he is. I mean, he sounds like Mephistopheles, but who knows. Ultimately, Roland wants to reach "The Tower," where all universes? dimensions? converge.

Review: Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

[This is an excerpt from my review on SF Signal 7/7/15. Read the entire review here.] 
 

Aurora is the first of Robinson’s books that I’ve read, and now it certainly won’t be the last. I started the novel knowing that it had something to do with space travel on a generation ship, and the search for other habitable planets, but I never expected such an in-depth, detailed, and downright vast exploration of the implications of human space travel and relocation.

Some of you, I assume, will think about Battlestar Galactica, The Martian Chronicles, Severance, and the like while reading Aurora, and rightly so, since stories of humans setting out to find a new home run throughout American sci-fi. What makes Aurora stand out, though, is just how far Robinson takes the narrative: dropping us into the generation ship as it approaches Tau Ceti, following the small group of settlers who test out the chosen moon, then returning with the ship and its remaining passengers (in stasis) to Earth, and finally following the surviving passengers as they set foot on a planet they’ve never seen but nonetheless call “home.”

[...]

In Translation: August Fiction and Poetry

Summer’s almost over and how did that happen?? Well, what better way to cheer yourself up about that fact than by thinking about the new fiction and poetry in translation out this month! August offers us novels from Denmark, Egypt, and Korea, and poetry from Mexico.

What are you reading in translation?


Rock, Paper, Scissors by Naja Marie Aidt, translated by K.E. Semmel (Open Letter Press, 450 pages, August 11)

From Open Letter Press comes Naja Marie Aidt’s debut novel about families and destructive secrets. When Thomas and Jenny’s father dies, Thomas uncovers a secret from his father’s criminal past that turns his own world upside down. I for one am really looking forward to checking out this novel from the winner of the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize.

An Open Letter to the TTBOOK Radio Show

Dear To the Best of Our Knowledge,

Let me start by saying that I’ve enjoyed almost every interview I’ve heard on this program, mostly because the topics are fascinating and wide-ranging (I especially love the “dangerous ideas” segments).

However, to say that I was disturbed by your July 26 episode, entitled “The Art of Reading,” would be putting it mildly. For now, I’m just going to focus on Anne Strainchamps’s interview with Professor Maryanne Wolf, an “expert on the neuroscience of reading,” and save my take-down of the absurdly-pretentious James Wood interview for another post.

In Translation: July Fiction and Poetry

Comin’ atcha this month is a batch of mouth-wateringly awesome books in translation: a haunting tale from Mozambique, a fictionalized account of violence in 1950s Lebanon, poems from a brilliant but tragic Peruvian poet, and a Spanish thriller in the style of Graham Greene. I know, right?! Enjoy!

Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto, translated by David Brookshaw (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 208 pages, July 14)

A biologist by profession, Couto is also one of the most respected writers in Mozambique and Portuguese-speaking Africa. He’s also received numerous literary awards, including the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Cuoto’s Confession of the Lioness is a haunting story about the women of a remote village who are being hunted by “ghostlike lionesses.” Are these animals real or are they being conjured by these women in response to community-ingrained oppression? Confession is a fascinating exploration of the conflict between modernity and ancient traditions.

Random Recommendation Guest Post: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This recommendation comes from Michael S. Alter. You can follow him on twitter @Michael_S_Alter.


House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski

"Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams."

Books to Look For (August): Literary Fiction

     

From the TBR Shelf #46: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

The Paris Architect (2013) by Charles Belfoure

I had heard good things about this novel when it first came out, but was so crushed by my own TBR pile that I didn't get around to reading it until now. However, my mom was looking for something to read a couple of months ago, and knowing that it was about WWII, I figured she'd enjoy it. I was right.

I have to say, I enjoyed it, too, but not because Belfoure is a brilliant stylist (he isn't), or because it is based on a compelling true story about French people hiding Jews during the Nazi Occupation (it isn't). Rather, I flew through this book because the story offers us a unique angle on life in France at this time (think Suite Francaise). 

Rachel's Random Recommendation #48: The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

 

I've been an avid Stephen King reader ever since I was 14 or 15 and read The Shining. Since then, I've devoured many more of his novels, including Under the Dome, Bag of Bones, Insomnia, Running Man, and even the screenplay for Storm of the Century. You may wonder why I didn't list It, Carrie, or some of his other well-known books, and that's because I haven't gotten to them yet. But- I absolutely had to read his Dark Tower series. It's been bugging me for a while, and I decided to get them all as audiobooks and plow through them. It's gonna be great.

A Look at Short Speculative Fiction in Translation from Clarkesworld Magazine

Review on the Speculative Fiction in Translation site

Read This INSTEAD of That: History Edition

Y’all know that I’m obsessed with history, right? I gobble up history in print and audio like a Rachel who hasn’t eaten chocolate in a week and is suddenly transported to a Ghirardelli store.

Not surprisingly, I keep track of the new histories coming out each month, and for a while now, I’ve been very disappointed. You might have seen me ranting on The Twitters in the following way:




 WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER BIOGRAPHY OF FDR.

WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER HISTORY OF WORLD WAR I.

WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

WHY DO WE NEED ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT LINCOLN.

SFF in Translation for 2015 (so far)

                              


   





The Last Passenger by Manel Loureiro, translated by Andrés Alfaro (Amazon Crossing English; Tra edition, 382 pgs, January 1)
 

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, translated by Lola M. Rogers (Thomas Dunne Books, 352 pgs, January 20)

Dendera by Yuya Sato, translated by Nathan Collins & Edwin Hawkes (Haikasoru, 400 pgs, February 17)

The Old Axolotl: Hardware Dreams by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Stanley Bill (Allegro, 160 pgs, March 16)

The Dead Mountaineer's Inn: One More Last Rite for the Detective Genre by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, translated by Josh Billings (Melville House, 256 pgs, March 17)

Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas by Kazuki Sakuraba, translated by Jocelyn Allen (Haikasoru, 300 pgs, April 21)

Gene Mapper by Taiyo Fujii, translated by Jim Hubbert (Haikasoru, 304 pgs, June 16)

S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin, translated by Andrew Bromfield (Gollancz, 480 pgs, June 18) 

Memory by Teresa P. Mira de Echeverría, translated by Lawrence Schimel (Upper Rubber Boot Books, 50 pgs, July 25)

Biogenesis by Tatsuaki Ishiguro, translated by Brian Watson & James Balzer (Vertical, 240 pgs, July 28)

The Elven by Bernhard Hennen and James A. Sullivan, translated by Edwin Miles (Amazon Crossing English, 765 pgs, August 1)

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen (Tor Books, 512 pgs, August 11)

The Apex Book of World SF 4 ed. Mahvesh Murad (Apex, August)

Metro 2034 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, translated by Andrew Bromfield (Gollancz, 320 pgs, October 1)  

Cat Country by Lao She, translated by William A. Lyell (Penguin Books Australia, 240 pgs, December 1)

Clarkesworld Magazine

 

“A Universal Elegy” by Tang Fei, translated by John Chu, Jan 2015, Issue 100 (China)

“Ether” by Zhang Ran, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan and Ken Liu, Jan 2015, Issue 100 (China)

“Coming of the Light” by Chen Qiufan, translated by Ken Liu, March 2015, Issue 102 (China)

“Mrs. Griffin Prepares to Commit Suicide Tonight” by A Que, translated by John Chu, May 2015, Issue 104 (China)

“An Evolutionary Myth” by Bo-young Kim, translated by Gord Sellar and Jihyun Park, May 2015, Issue 104 (South Korea)

 

Lightspeed Magazine 

"The Smog Society" by Chen Qiufan, translated by Ken Liu and Carmen Yiling Yan, August 2015, Issue 63 (China)