Books to Look For (April): History

   

Review: The SEA is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia, edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng

The SEA is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia, ed. by Jayme Goh and Joyce Chng (Rosarium Publishing, 270 pages, 2015)


If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read my interview with editors Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng on the genesis of this collection. As they explained, The SEA is Ours is a unique and exciting effort to broaden the boundaries of the subgenre we know as “steampunk” while simultaneously creating alternate colonial histories, ones that imagine people using airships and automatons (among other things) to beat back invaders and keep alive traditions in an evolving world.

When Books Hit Too Close to Home

You know that feeling when you’re reading a novel and suddenly you come across a description or a scene and you’re like “hey that’s my life right there!” It’s as if the author had known that you specifically were going to read their book, so they threw in some personal things to freak you out.

Well. This has happened to me twice within the past four years, and both times it was very disturbing. So a big ol’ THANKS NOT REALLY to Stephen King and John Steinbeck for giving me nightmares I totally didn’t need.

Curiosity Killed the Think Piece: We’re Allowed to Wonder Who Ferrante Is

People, I’m tired of the pointless literary thinky-pieces with questions for titles. You know what I’m talking about. “Is the Novel Really Dead?” “Does Anybody Really Read Shakespeare Anymore?” “Is [Author] an Interdimensional Alien?”

Specifically, I was annoyed by the recent Electric Lit piece, “Why Do We Care Who the ‘Real’ Elena Ferrante Is?” Here we’re brought up to date on the latest speculation about the anonymous Italian author’s true identity. The central question of the piece, though, is why “we” would even try to find out who this writer “really” is when ‘Muricans are too boorish too even name an Italian author, much less care about what they write.

In Translation: March Fiction and Poetry

Ahhhhh March. You bring with you the promise of Spring and the hope that we’ve seen the last of that muddy, gross, hard-packed snow staring at us from the gutters. And laughing. Well, laugh no more, abominable snowmen, for here are some great reads in translation (from Italy, Japan, Jordan, and Lebanon) that will generate enough warmth to melt your asses so there, Winter!


My Secret Book by Francesco Petrarca, edited and translated by Nicholas Mann (Harvard University Press Series: The I Tatti Renaissance Library, 304 pages, March 28)

We all know Petrarch, but here we have access to some of his most tormented thoughts about his need for fame and love. Written as a dialogue between Franciscus and Augustinius, in the presence of Truth (represented as a beautiful woman), Secretum (My Secret Book) offers us a new perspective on the 14th century poet and his goals as a writer.

Hey, Virginia: Your Censorship Bill is a Terrible Idea

People of Virginia: you have a job to do. Email, call, send telepathic messages to your state legislature and tell those politicians that you will not stand for idiotic, narrow-minded, absolutely f$%^ing ridiculous bills like HB516.

What is this bill? It’s supposed to force schools to notify parents if teachers plan to distribute and discuss instructional material that contains “sexually explicit” passages, WHATEVER THAT MEANS. The parents will then be able to opt out and have their precious snowflakes read something else. I’m guessing Winnie the Pooh?

12 Translators on Why They Do What They Do

I’ve been interested in literary translation since I was a teenager reading Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, Mann, and Kafka for the first time. And when I started thinking about what it meant to declare that Thomas Mann was my favorite writer while only being able to read him in English translation, I was struck by just how important translation is to expanding our minds and introducing us to diverse cultures. I also realized that my experience reading Mann in English differed in fascinating ways from that of a German-speaker reading him in the original. Years later, when I translated the work of several French Symbolist poets for an independent study, I realized how much every single word makes a difference in conveying meaning from one language to another and in capturing tone and style. It was some of the hardest work I had ever done, but also incredibly rewarding.

8 Reasons Why I’m Loving Stephen King’s Dark Tower Series

You may have heard recently that, yes, finally, Stephen King’s Dark Tower series will be heading to the big screen. I’m pretty excited about this news, you guys, because I’m in the middle of listening to the sixth book and have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. AND. FEELS. AND. THINGS.

And yes, I’m late to the party as usual, but I’ve been a King fan for many years and it was only right to finally jump into the story of Roland Deschain to see what all the fuss was about. (Read Susie’s piece about what to do if you want to read the series but you hated The Gunslinger).

So, even though I haven’t even finished Song of Susannah yet, I’m going to tell you eight reasons (in honor of the eight books) why I’m luuuurving the Dark Tower. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to read it, too, if you haven’t already.

I’ll try not to be spoiler-y.

In Italiano: Italian Lit in the News

I love Italy for many reasons: it has given us opera, a beautiful spoken language, pasta, some kick-ass literature, and many other things (I also married an Italian, so there’s that!). It should come as no surprise, then, that when I realized how much Italy was in the bookish headlines recently, I was molto eccitato!

(n.b. I audited Italian during grad school, but I don’t get much of a chance to use it, so I’m going to vocab-drop throughout this post- just lettin’ ya know).


Primo, if you haven’t heard the buzz around Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series (which will be adapted for tv soon, apparently), you’ve been living on Mars or something. This four-part story about friendship, love, and family has taken America by storm, and the obscurity of the writer’s identity makes the quartet even more tantalizing. How have I not read any Ferrante yet, you ask? Three reasons: twins and a baby.

ANYWAY. I’m feeling a bit warm these days, so Ferrante Fever is definitely getting a hold on me. Imma check these books out.

Books to Look For (March): History

             

Review: The Big Rewind by Libby Cudmore

The Big Rewind by Libby Cudmore (William Morrow, 256 pages)

Cudmore's debut novel is like the mix tapes that populate its pages- once you start it, you just want to blow through the entire thing without stopping.

Set in the Barter Street district of Brooklyn, The Big Rewind follows Jett Bennett- an aspiring music journalist who temps to make ends meet- as she tries to figure out who killed her friend and neighbor, KitKat. The key to solving the murder is a mix tape meant for KitKat that Jett accidentally receives in the mail.

From the TBR Shelf #53: The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004) by Stephen King

Ok, after Wolves of the Calla, almost anything was going to be a kind of letdown. I mean, Wolves was kickin'.

Song of Susannah, though, moves the plot forward significantly, since here is where Susannah/Mia/Odetta/Detta finally has her/their(??) baby. Ok, that doesn't happen until the end, but this novel explains exactly who/what the baby is. We also learn more about the Rose, the vacant lot, and why Calvin Tower has refused to sell it to Eddie's former bosses.

Talking Translation With Chad Post of Open Letter Books

Recently, I asked Chad Post of Open Letter Books about the current state of literary translation. Here’s what he had to say about translating women writers, the Best Translated Book Award, and much more:

Rachel Cordasco: What kinds of changes have you seen in the world of translated books over the past several years (i.e. the proliferation of small presses specializing in translation, efforts to translate more women and writers from underrepresented countries, etc.) ?

In Translation: February Fiction and Poetry

Looking for some fabulous titles in translation to get you through the February doldrums? Well, look no further than these works of fiction and poetry from India, France, Austria, and Germany. You. Are. Welcome.

The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions, 320 pages, February 8)

Now out in paperback, Erpenbeck’s award-winning novel The End of Days follows one woman as she dies five different times. Each death occurs at a different moment in the 20th century, allowing Erpenbeck to explore the nexus of the personal and the historical.

 

A Friendship Forged With Books

I met some wonderful people during my time as an undergraduate English major, but one of the greatest has to be my friend Hamilton, who turned 97 this year.

You read that right. Dude is NINETY-FREAKIN-SEVEN and still going strong- reading, visiting with family, reading, talking to me on the phone every few months, and READING. The man loves books.

I first met him in a fiction workshop during my second semester, and I wasn’t very surprised to hear that he was auditing the class. Many seniors (as in 50 years old and over) did just that, spending their retirement learning new things and interacting with professors and younger students; basically, what I hope to do when I’m ninety-freakin-seven years old.

Books We Hope Nobody’s Checking Out

You may have seen this recent story about the United Nations library and how its most “popular” book of 2015 was entitled – wait for it – Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes.

Yup.

Now, only a few people checked it out BUT STILL. Pretty disturbing. So of course we here at Book Riot started thinking about other examples of books we would hope certain people would not ever ever ever check out.

**Note that these titles were all made up by us and do not exist in the world (at least, we hope not).**

Review: Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Wheeler

Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Wheeler (Deep Vellum, 400 pages, April 12)

The bleak and desolate expanse of eastern Ukraine is the backdrop as well as a major character in Zhadan's novel, first published in 2010. Since that time, fighting among various factions has made the area deadly and life there uncertain. This makes reading Voroshilovgrad and following the news of the Ukrainian conflict oddly unsettling.

A strange mixture of magical realism, road novel, and spiritual journey, Voroshilovgrad follows the seemingly-random wanderings of Herman Korolyov, who is called away from his sketchy political job and friends to deal with the sudden disappearance of his brother. Herman journeys back to his childhood town and the gas station his brother had been running on the Kharkiv highway in order to figure out what to do with the business now that his brother has left (for Amsterdam? It's never clear).

Books to Look For (February): Literary Fiction

 

From the TBR Shelf #52: The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003) by Stephen King


Yup, this is my favorite Dark Tower book- so far.

It's concentrated and self-contained, even as it continues the main themes of questing and good vs. evil that run through the previous books. Here, a small farming community- Calla Bryn Sturgis- is preparing for a once-in-a-generation attack by unknown creatures. As had happened many times before, these creatures swoop in, take one twin from each pair in the community (most children born there are twins), and whisk them off to an unknown location. These children are ultimately sent back to their families, but with significant physiological and psychological problems. No one knows why they are taken, or what is done with them. But this time, instead of just letting the kidnappings happen, the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis are determined to fight. They ask Roland and his ka-tet (who are passing through their region) for help.

Review: Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev, translated by Angela Rodel

Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev, translated by Angela Rodel (Open Letter, 124 pages, February 9)


Party Headquarters is the latest in a string of post-Soviet-Union literature that has passed through my hands lately, revealing yet another piece of the puzzle that is life in modern Eastern Europe.

This particular novel, set in Bulgaria and Germany, explores the legacy of deceit and greed that has continued even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  While reading this, I found myself thinking about how it connects to my own life (having been born just a few years before the Chernobyl disaster). When, for instance, the unnamed narrator of PH wonders how politicians could have kept the news of Chernobyl secret from people across the region, allowing them to unwittingly poison themselves, all to guard the top party leaders from censure, I think about what one of my Ukrainian friends told me once. She said she was told not to ever stay in the sun too long, even while wearing sunscreen, because the radiation from Chernobyl vastly increased her risk for skin cancer. She and her family had left Ukraine just a few years after the disaster.