The OF Blog: These are recent print editions that I'm in the process of reading/reviewing

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

These are recent print editions that I'm in the process of reading/reviewing

Since I did this earlier for the e-books I have, here are previously-non-photographed images of books that I recently received that I just finished reading, am in the process of reading, or will be reading in the near future.  Most, if not all, of these will feature in a review and/or feature in the coming months.


Gander's poetry collection, which I quoted in a post earlier tonight, is a finalist for this year's National Book Critic Circle Award for Poetry.  Just finished it and it is the perfect antidote for the nonsense I've been reading lately about commenting on other cultures.  Three Messages and a Warning is an anthology of Mexican fantastical fiction.  I may decide to write a feature or more on individual stories/authors, if their stories are weird enough, in a biweekly column on Weird Fiction Review that  Paul Smith and I will be running there later this month.


I've enjoyed two of Pelevin's earlier books in translation before, so I'm going to be reading this one in the near future.  The Catalan original of this pre-exile Mercè Rodoreda arrived too late for me to utilize it in a feature I turned in to WFR earlier this week, but I will read it and perhaps give my thoughts on it in the near future, as she is an excellent writer.


Ander Monson has written some brilliant stories in recent years (I had marked one of them for consideration for BAF 4), so I'm curious to see how he is as a poet.  Due to a recommendation from a reader a few days ago, I bought one of Polish writer Stefan Zeromski's books, The Faithful River.  Sometime in the next few months, I hope to have the time to read and possibly review it.


I am writing features in the next couple of months on Gogol's Overcoat for both the 1961 Nobel Literature-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić and one of the nominees that year, Italian writer Alberto Moravia.  These two books will supplement other books of theirs that I already own.


Next week, I am due to turn in a feature piece on one of Ray's weird fictions, so to prep for that and a few other related matters in mind, I bought an expanded French-language edition of his earliest collection (this one contains some stories from his second collection), Les Contes du Whisky (Whisky Tales).  Some good, weird stuff here.

Which ones of these have you read?  Which would you like to read soon, if possible?  Which would you like to know more about?  And which would you not piss on if it were on fire?

2 comments:

Mike said...

interested to see you picking up Monson. His essays are absolutely perfect to me...neck deep, and also the not-memoir, vanishing point I think. Highly recommended

Larry Nolen said...

I selected one of his stories for consideration for BAF 4 before it was discontinued two years ago. After I finish a few reads for review purposes, I plan on dipping into it over intervals the next few weeks.

 
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