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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“Second Place” borrows its story line from a 1930s-era memoir about D.H. Lawrence, but its themes are quintessential Cusk. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-04-26 17:28:26 UTC ]
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Sure, books like “The Hill We Climb,” “Poems of Healing” and “How to Heal the World” mean well, but recovery on command is tricky. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-04-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Ellen Adams is a singer-songwriter and prose writer who splits her time between Seattle and Montreal. She has been a Lambda Literary Fellow for nonfiction and a Fulbright Fellow researching politically engaged contemporary art in Thailand.... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-03-29 13:25:33 UTC ]
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Literary Tributes When we heard the news yesterday that Adam Zagajewski had passed away at the age of seventy-five in Kraków, Poland, we immediately thought not only of his exceptional poetry and essays but also of his exceedingly warm congeniality.... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-03-22 18:27:58 UTC ]
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Crowdfunding publisher Unbound is to launch 42: The Wildly Improbably Ideas of Douglas Adams, featuring unseen notes, scripts and ideas from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy author. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-22 13:50:59 UTC ]
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Hannah, the protagonist of Amanda Craig's The Golden Rule, is a young single mother with a cruel, abusive ex-husband. A university graduate, she has left her job in advertising because of rampant sexual harassment, and is living a life of grinding, miserable poverty in London, working as a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-05 21:13:52 UTC ]
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Ishiguro’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in 2017 is a delicate, haunting story, steeped in sorrow and hope. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-03-02 16:46:21 UTC ]
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A psychology book by a Nobel Prize-winning author has become a must-read in front offices. It is changing the sport. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-02-24 12:00:07 UTC ]
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With its witty, ruthless skewering of the Indian middle classes, Rahul Raina’s roistering, whip-smart and deliciously fun Dehli-set crime caper, How to Kidnap the Rich, is the first great state-of-the-subcontinent novel of the 21st century. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-19 10:07:42 UTC ]
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Journalist and author Caitlin Moran is to curate a Mother's Day selection box for book subscription service LoveMyRead. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-14 22:50:45 UTC ]
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The Austin, Tex.–based book box subscription service has pulled in more than $50 million recently. Here's what's happening. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-02-12 05:00:00 UTC ]
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There’s so much contemporary fiction released every day, it’s hard to keep track—and it’s hard to know which works will still be remembered in a year and which will slip into obscurity. Luckily, we have George Saunders to guide us. In an interview with Los Angeles Review of Books, Saunders was... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-05 16:37:34 UTC ]
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“The Absolute Book,” by Elizabeth Knox, takes on a number of genres, while “Winter’s Orbit,” by Everina Maxwell, stays true to one. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-01-29 10:00:04 UTC ]
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Hachette UK is launching the Feminist Book Box, a subscription service intended to highlight the best in feminist writing and storytelling across its 10 divisions, including Hodder & Stoughton, Little, Brown and Orion. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-28 01:29:39 UTC ]
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The Anti-Virus website takes on figures like Toby Young and Allison Pearson - and its creators think it has them on the runCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSometimes, Stuart Ritchie feels like he’s being pursued by an army of smiley faces. The lecturer at the Institute... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-01-25 07:00:08 UTC ]
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Angry Robot has acquired its first novella collection from Hugo Award-winning American author Tim Pratt after seeing the author's Kickstarter campaign for the project. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-05 22:12:51 UTC ]
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Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens. Actress and comedian Rachel Bloom narrates her own memoir, I Want to Be Where the Normal... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-29 09:46:38 UTC ]
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Adam Lerner has been leading Minneapolis-based Lerner Publishing Group for roughly 20 years, and this year the independent children’s press’s reach has extended far beyond the traditional community of young readers, the book trade, and the school and library market. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-12-18 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Book subscriptions from indies around the country are ideal for gifting — to yourself or someone else. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-07 13:00:00 UTC ]
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