New & Notable

[Liam]

But to continue: Philip Pullman retells the Brothers Grimm; Emma Donoghue's new collection of short stories; Jacqueline Rose's The Last Resistance; Pierre Michon's The Eleven; the collected verse of a little-known 19th-century Australian poet John Shaw Neilson; John Ashbery's latest; and a new biography of P. K. Page.

[Liam]

This sounds vaguely amusing:

ALBERT OF ADELAIDE follows the story of a duck-billed platypus who escapes from Australia's Adelaide Zoo and embarks on a journey through the outback in search of 'Old Australia,' a land of liberty, promise and peace.

Encountering a motley assortment of characters--a pyromaniac wombat, a pair of invariably drunk (and vaguely gay) bandicoots, some dingoes, a group of kangaroos and a wrestling Tasmanian devil--this unlikely hero discovers a strength and skill for survival he could not have known he possessed.

At once an old-fashioned-buddy-novel-shoot-em-up and a work of deliciously imagined fantasy, ALBERT OF ADELAIDE is a haunting story of a world where something has gone horribly awry.

Probably a light summer read; I'll get it for the beach, .

[Eric]

I think I'll give the platypus a miss, duck.

Actually, the cover of the Emma Donoghue book looks like something out of the 1950s.

[Liam]

A new book about whale poop is out, . Here is the review. Sounds awesome!

[Eric]

The cover of the whale book is crap...

[Liam]

A medieval Persian epic; the Robert Bly/Thomas Tranströmer correspondence; Nuala Ní Chonchúir's 2004 short story collection The Wind Across the Grass finally being released here; plus Stephen Kuusisto's aforementioned book gets a cover:

[Liam]

American science fiction classics (Volumes 1 and 2); Pat Barker's new novel about the Great War, Toby's Room (an obvious allusion to Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room?); the diaries of George Orwell; John Barton's (Canadian gay poet) volume of selected verse from the last thirty years For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin; David McLoghlin's Waiting for Saint Brendan; and a new installment in Peter Tremayne's medieval Irish Sister Fidelma mystery cycle, Behold a Pale Horse.

[sriq]

Another Tove Jansson book is being released in English translation at the end of the month! It's titled Art in Nature, and is another collection of her short stories from Sort of Books:

"This is a 'new' Tove Jansson, published for the first time in English. Tales of obsession and ambition are revealed and sparkle 'like buried treasure'. An elderly caretaker at a large outdoor exhibition, called Art in Nature, finds that a couple have lingered on to bicker about the value of a picture; he has a surprising suggestion that will resolve both their row and his own ambivalence about the art market. A draughtsman's obsession with drawing locomotives provides a dark twist to a love story. A cartoonist takes over the work of a colleague who has suffered a nervous breakdown only to discover that his own sanity is in danger. In these witty, sharp, often disquieting stories, Tove Jansson reveals the fault-lines in our relationship with art, both as artists and as consumers. Obsession, ambition, and the discouragement of critics are all brought into focus in these wise and cautionary tales."

[Liam]

Cool! I have the complete Moomin cycle at home and should probably get round to it one day (I've only read 3 or 4 of them so far, hugely enjoyable).

[JTolle]

The Complete Larkin, the Complete Cavafy, and David Koker's Holocaust Diary (which I'll probably be reading this summer):

cover_cavafy_pb.jpg Larkin.jpg David Koker.jpg

[Liam]

Yeah, I got the Cavafy book too; don't know when I'll get to it though; but it's awesome.

[Eric]

As for the Tove Jansson book (pronounced Toover Yarnson) that Sriq mentions, it is symptomatic of modern publishing that the publishers feel they have to prop up the book by getting Ali Smith's name on the front cover, while the translator, Thomas Teal, is presumably consigned and confined to the title page. Teal did all the work, Smith just read it. The famous plugger should not upstage the translator.

I also find it interesting that the publishing house, Sort of Books, needs to get a homosexual woman to do the plug. Everyone in Finland knew that Tove Jansson was lesbian and had a long-term relationship with her artist friend who became the model for Tooticky in the Moomin books. But Jansson's stories are about so many other subtleties. The lesbianism in them is low key and never sexual in the prurient sense. (So, no double-dildos.) They are beautiful stories that can appeal to homo- and heterosexual readers alike.

[sriq]

That's something that always bothered me about the New York Review Book Classics series, who also released some of Jansson's stuff - no translator on the cover, just whoever did the introduction. But I suppose the introductions in that series are meant to be a really big deal (sometimes they're as long as the actual book). Smith's intros have never seemed all that substantial for the Jansson books though. Most of them tend to repeat the same thoughts, and I believe for two of the short story collections they actually were the exact same introduction.

[Liam]

Awesome news: Library of America (aka LOA) is to publish W. S. Merwin's collected poems in two volumes, in April of next year: Vol I: 1953-1993, Vol II: 1996-2013.

Also coming out: May Swenson's Collected Poems (976 pp); Stained Glass: Poetry from the Land of Mozambique; as well as a new translation of the stupendous medieval Japanese chronicle The Tale of the Heike, translated by Royall Tyler (784 pp).

[Liam]

A Czech Gothic novel, a Vietnamese mystery, short stories from Hampton Fancher, a former screenplay writer whose gems include Blade Runner; plus Susanna Moore's new novel gets a cover:

[Liam]

McEwan's Sweet Tooth gets a cover:

[Liam]

I didn't even know that the great American scholar Joseph Cambell wrote "fiction," but this book is being presented as such. I have, of course, his A Hero with a Thousand Faces at home. Anyone interested in mythology, recurrent patterns, early and medieval literature, symbolism and Jungian psychoanalysis (as applied to myths) ought to read that book.

For what it's worth, here's the new offering:

[kpjayan]

One of the literary sensation in Malayalam, in the recent years Goat Days is now available in English Translation. I've read this in the original language.

http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/goat-days






Here is the cover in the original language :

[Liam]

I like the cover very much, Jay, what is the book about? The second one looks like the figure is kneeling in some kind of desert, I didn't know there were deserts in India?

[kpjayan]

Well, there is a desert in India.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thar_Desert

But, this novel happens in the Middle East, home for a large number of Indian workers. The migration to the Arab land, seeking job / livelihood started 50 years ago , Malayalis ( people of Kerala , South West State in India) lead the exodus. The Keralites, in the Gulf ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_Gulf_diaspora) is estimated around 2.5M. Benyamin ( Benny Benyamin) , himself is working in Baharin, as I understand. Movies and litarature around the life in Gulf are now gaining momentum in our part.

About the book, here is what the Penguin blurb says :

"Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in the Gulf and earn enough money to send back home. He achieves his dream only to be propelled by a series of incidents, grim and absurd, into a slave-like existence herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. Memories of the lush, verdant landscape of his village and of his loving family haunt Najeeb whose only solace is the companionship of goats. In the end, the lonely young man contrives a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison.

Goat Days was published to acclaim in Malayalam and became a bestseller. One of the brilliant new talents of Malayalam literature, Benyamin’s wry and tender telling transforms this strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation. "