Thinking Outside the Perceptual Box: Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg’s Robot, by Rachel Cordasco

Book Reviews Photo by Aideal Hwa / Unsplash If reading Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg’s Robot (Penguin Classics, 2021), translated by Tomasz Mirkowicz, makes you think about Stanislaw Lem’s work, you’re not alone. Indeed, both Robot and Lem’s His Master’s Voice (published in Polish just a few years apart) take up the fascinating but insoluble problem of whether or not we’re alone in the universe. One might even call Robot surrealist science fiction and liken it to Kafka’s work, or even Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, since the main character spends most of his time wandering around the halls of an underground shelter, unsure of his own identity and his place in the community that has formed following an apocalyptic event on the surface. His identity confusion derives from his “birth” on an assembly line under a kind of bell jar. Given instructions by a mysterious Mechanism to study the people living in the shelter, the protagonist proceeds as if he is a living machine given a modicum of free will (as explained by the Mechanism). Much of the novel focuses on the protagonist figuring out why those around him are living underground and why many of them believe that he is a physicist named Poreyra. Encountering strange “statues” that weigh several tons in one of the shelter’s rooms, he eventually moves through a mirror there into a replica of the stricken city, where time moves at a fraction of the speed experienced in the shelter.... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-10 20:14:00 UTC ]
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13 books that CEOs think you should read in 2020

As you make your reading list for the next decade, consider titles that span everything from healthy school lunches to Trump’s immigration record. As another year comes to an end—and this time, the decade too—perhaps you’ve realized you haven’t quite made it through your reading list. If you’re... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2019-12-24 08:00:27 UTC ]
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Kiley Reid | 'Those things aren’t her fault, but the fallacy of the American Dream makes her think that it is'

What is it like to be paid to be part of someone’s family? Kiley Reid’s début explores the uneasy nature of "transactional relationships". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-23 14:27:08 UTC ]
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Weekly E-Book Ranking: Adam Kay's festive follow-up shifts back into the top

Adam Kay's Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas (Picador) has re-claimed the Weekly E-Book Ranking number one, topping the chart for the first time since its launch week in October. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-19 16:49:58 UTC ]
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Rachel Maddow Comes Up With Genius Way To Boil Down Entire Donald Trump-Ukraine Scandal

"It’s like the children’s book version of a president crime-ing his way to being impeached," said the MSNBC host. Continue reading at The Huffington Post

[ The Huffington Post | 2019-12-04 08:44:14 UTC ]
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Bodley Head scoops Rachel Maddow's take on oil industry

Bodley Head will publish MSNBC news anchor Rachel Maddow’s take on "the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-19 02:47:32 UTC ]
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Mudlark snaps up Adam Buxton's memoir

HarperCollins Publishers has snapped up comedian, writer and broadcaster Adam Buxton’s memoir, Ramble Book. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-17 16:54:41 UTC ]
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New subscription box service confronts lack of representation in children's books

A new subscription service offering monthly deliveries of black children's literature has been launched in response to the lack of children’s books in the UK featuring BAME characters. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-17 16:01:04 UTC ]
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Profiles in Thinking About Courage: inside ‘A Warning’ by Anonymous

A WARNING By Anonymous. Twelve. 259 pp. $30 There is a good reason the anonymous Trump administration official who published an opinion essay in the New Y... Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-13 20:45:27 UTC ]
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HarperCollins scoops Harvill Secker editor Adams debut in two-book deal

HarperCollins has won a multi-publisher auction for The Reading List by debut author and Harvill Secker commissioning editor Sara Nisha Adams in a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-10 16:51:18 UTC ]
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Adam Matthew Digital to publish RSC archives

Publisher Adam Matthew Digital is working with the Royal Shakespeare Company to digitise parts of the organisation’s archive and make them accessible to academics. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-31 09:28:08 UTC ]
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The Trouble with “Adam”

WHEN YA PUBLISHER Houghton Mifflin Harcourt put out Ariel Schrag’s Adam in 2014, it felt predetermined that this debut novel would eventually become a movie. Indeed, the promotional materials included a trailer for an imagined film, a digital elevator pitch. Moreover, as a preexisting YA... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-26 17:00:36 UTC ]
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'The Rise of Jordan Peterson' Doesn't Tell You What to Think

The documentary explores how the bestselling author has been both celebrated and reviled.  Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2019-10-26 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Digiday Publishing Summit Event Briefing: Why publishers need to think like gyms to retain subscribers

At this week's Digiday Publishing Summit Europe in Budapest, Hungary, executives discussed how they are looking to diversify their sources of income and the inevitable pain points that come with that exercise. The post Digiday Publishing Summit Event Briefing: Why publishers need to think like... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2019-10-25 04:00:05 UTC ]
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Will Robots Make the Next Big Bestsellers?

In November, around 100 coders and creative writers are expected to take the National Novel Generation Month challenge, generating 50,000-word novels via articifical intelligence. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-10-25 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Priya Basil | 'Thinking of myself as European has been a way to hold all my different identities together'

In her latest work, Be My Guest, Priya Basil explores the meaning of hospitality and its unifying potential. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 15:48:30 UTC ]
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Amazon Charts: Adam Kay jingles all the way to number one

Adam Kay's Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas (Picador) has made a surgical strike on the Amazon Charts Most-Sold: Non-Fiction number one, with the This is Going to Hurt sequel beating Elton John's Me (Macmillan) to the top spot. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-23 10:27:14 UTC ]
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Adam Rippon’s path to becoming ‘America’s sweetheart’ was not all fun and (Olympic) games

But his memoir, “Beautiful on the Outside,” makes the comedic most of his low points. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-16 13:00:00 UTC ]
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I was proud my literature award. Then came the talk of ‘box-ticking’ | Chitra Ramaswamy

It’s clear that the publishing world needs more diversity. Why do some see this as compromising quality?Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, months after this riven old island voted to leave the European Union, and days after an ex-reality TV host became the leader of the free world, a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-10-11 15:37:44 UTC ]
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Rachel Maddow pinpoints the root of all evils: The fossil fuel industry

The MSNBC host blames oil and gas companies for the world’s environmental and political ills. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-04 02:35:30 UTC ]
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University Press Week Wants You to 'Read. Think. Act.'

The Association of University Presses has announced the theme for this year’s University Press Week, which runs from Sunday, November 3 through Saturday, November 9: “Read. Think. Act.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-10-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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