Another longlist--Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014

I read a lot of fiction in translation, so I've heard of most of these. Most are on my TBR list. What surprised me is:  I have read only one of them, The Infatuations (I didn't especially like it). Part of why I haven't read any of the others is accessibility: local libraries don't have very many of them.

Will wait for Best Translated Book Award longlist and then start with books I haven't read that are on both lists. I have probably read three or four on the BTBA list.

    A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard and translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Harvill Secker)
    A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli and translated from the French by Sam Taylor (Portobello Books)
    Back to Back by Julia Franck and translated from the German by Anthea Bell (Harvill Secker)
    Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andreï Makine and translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan (MacLehose Press)
    Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir and translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon (Pushkin Press)
    The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon and translated from the Arabic by the author (Yale University Press)
    The Dark Road by Ma Jian and translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew (Chatto & Windus)
    Exposure by Sayed Kashua and translated from the Hebrew by Mitch Ginsberg (Chatto & Windus?
    The Infatuations by Javier Marías and translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa (Hamish Hamilton)
    The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim and translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright (Comma Press)
    The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke and translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch (Peirene Press)
    Revenge by Yoko Ogawa and translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder (Harvill Secker)
    The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson and translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton (MacLehose Press)
    Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami and translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell (Portobello Books)
    Ten by Andrej Longo and translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis (Harvill Secker)

Comments on The Baileys Women's Prize longlist

First of all I don't read something just because it is on one of these lists. But if I'm trying to decide whether to read a book a list like this may tip the scale--or not. This list has a few I've read, a few I've already rejected, I few already on my TBR list, and some I know little (or nothing) about.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (Fourth Estate)
  I've been considering this one, still not sure about it
Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam (Bloomsbury)
  Part of a series? I haven't read the others...probably won't get to this
Suzanne Berne, The Dogs of Littlefield (Fig Tree)
  I'm drawing a blank. Must look into this.
Fatima Bhutto, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (Viking)
  ditto
Claire Cameron, The Bear (Harvill Secker)
  Wavering because of a couple of iffy reviews. I'll probably give it a try
Lea Carpenter, Eleven Days (Two Roads)
   The first I've heard of this one.
M.J. Carter, The Strangler Vine (Fig Tree)
   Another unknown to me.
Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (Granta)
   Someday I'll probably read this.
Deborah Kay Davies, Reasons She Goes to the Woods (Oneworld)
   Uhh? Why haven't I heard of these books. 
Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things (Bloomsbury)
   I loved this book!
Hannah Kent, Burial Rites (Picador)
  Maybe I'll read.
Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (Harvill Secker)
   Read a description, several reviews, thumbed through it at library. Decided it's not something I want to read.
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland (Bloomsbury)
   I read part, didn't like it, set it aside, won't go back to it
Audrey Magee, The Undertaking (Atlantic Books)
  Another blank.  Will investigate.
Eimear McBride, A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing (Gallery Beggar Press)
  What is this? the title sounds coming of ageish. Will follow up.
Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English (Mantle)
   Another blank.  Is it because I'm in the USA?
Anna Quindlen, Still Life with Bread Crumbs (Hutchinson)
  Been meaning to read this one.
Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys (Simon and Schuster)
  I really liked this. Enough to checkout and read some of her other books.
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch (Little, Brown)
  Worst book I've tried to read this year. Made it to page 200. 
Evie Wyld, All The Birds, Singing (Jonathan Cape)
  Want to read.

So.  Seven I never heard of, two I read and loved, two I tried to read and rejected, one I consciously decided not to read, and eight I've been considering. This is pretty typical of my experience with long lists for prizes.

Humm...I just read in The Guardian that only four of these (Carter, Davies, Mendelson, and Wyld) are British authors. That accounts for three of the seven that were unfamiliar to me.

I like this list but I don't choose books by the gender of the writer.  I won't choose one of these just because the author is a woman, but I'm glad this list is drawing attention to these titles. 

FEBRUARY 2014 READING: brief notes

I did read a lot during February, but some of these were started in December and January but were finished in February. Each grouping is listed in more or less the order I liked them. Tough to give a preference for such diverse titles.  Some of these were "fluff" but they were good fluff. "Take a break" type reading, so I inserted fluff breaks.

                                                           FICTION

An Unnecessary Woman; Alameddine, Rabih
   Maybe the best of the bunch but the next two were very close. And the three after those. 

The Good Luck of Right Now; Quick, Matthew
  A quirky surprise. 

All Russians Love Birch Trees; Grjasnowa, Olga; translated  by Eva Bacon
When I finished this I said, "Wow!" 

Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes; Kehlmann, Daniel; Translated by Carol Brown Janeway 

   The author calls it a novel so I will too, but it's close to being a linked short story collection. (see The Greatest Show below.) 

Ways of Going Home;  Zambra, Alejandro; Translated by Megan McDowell

 Not sure why I liked this, but I did. 

At Night We Walk in Circles; Alarcón, Daniel
 So good, so very good. 

Boy, Snow, Bird; Oyeyemi, Helen

  I must read more by this author.
---fluff break---

Bite Me; Moore, Christopher
  San Francisco, vampires, why not? 

The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka; Alpaugh, Cole 

 Improbable, but I can willingly suspend my disbelief.
---back to more serious reads---     

& Sons; Gilbert, David
 I liked this, it reminded me of everything I didn't like about those "Eastern, boarding school, establishment, Waspish, writers" that I loathed when I was growing up in the 50s & 60s in California.  Auchincloss, Cheever, and that lot exposed.

My Two Worlds; Chejfec, Sergio; Translated by Margaret B. Carson
  This one gave me trouble, I missed something.  Will give it another try in a few months.

 These last four were huge disappointments, I want my time back.

The Invention of Wings;  Kidd, Sue Monk 
Under the Wide and Starry Sky; Horan, Nancy

Strange Bodies; Theroux, Marcel

Pioneer Girl; Nguyen, Bich Minh    
          

SHORT STORIES

The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda; Translated by Martha Tennent
  I've been reading this off and on since early December.  The stories are unrelated. Excellent.
 
The Greatest Show: Stories;  Downs, Michael   
  These stories are so closely linked that it reads almost like a novel. They need to be read in order. The link is the Hartford Circus Fire (1944).  Of interest to me because I live near Hartford and have met a survivor of the fire.  But I would like this even if I knew nothing about the disaster. 

Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and the Sublime from Tin House;  Spillman, Rob, editor. Introduction by Joy Williams.

  Strange, weird, but not horror.

---fluff break---

The Buck Pass; Whittier, T.R. (Ebook) 
  Not as good as the other two fluffs, but OK and the price was right. These are also linked stories, the link being a dollar bill.
---end fluff break---

 NON-FICTION

Twelve Years a Slave ; Northup, Solomon (Ebook) 
 Not exactly pleasure reading but a necessary read. I will not see the movie.
            

Churchill's First War: Young Winston at War with the Afghans; Coughlin, Con
 Interesting background material on Churchill's career and the Afghan situation.

How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit; Rybczynski, Witold
 Nothing special here,  an overview. 

America's First Subway The Race Underground;  Most, Doug
 The title and the promo make this sound as if there was some sort of competition to see who would finish first. That really wasn't the case.  The drama was more in the politics of each city.

 These next two were interesting subjects, but not particularly well written, too many extraneous details.  I skimmed. A lot.
Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World; Goodman, Matthew (Ebook).

The Demon Under the Microscope; Hager, Thomas (Ebook)
-----------------
All books were library books except:  Boy, Snow, Bird and the Churchill (ARCs); the Rodoreda story collection and The Buck Pass (my personal copies).

A Quote

Several years ago I came across this while reading.  I liked it so much that I used it for a while as a signature quote in email.  I no longer do  that but I frequently pull it up and re-read it.

      Fagerlien said,..."Every adventure results in a whole shipload of
     books, a whole library...."
        "And every library results in a new adventure," came Mazzini's
     modest attempt at rousing himself from silent and nodding
     agreement.  But Fagerlien maintained his demeanor and had the last
     word: "Or in a tourist."

                    Christoph Ransmayr--
                       _The Terrors of Ice and Darkness, a novel_
                       translated by John E. Woods from the German
                       _Schtecken des Eises und der Finsternis_
 
I like it for three reasons:  I am a reader, I am a librarian, and I am a tourist. When I travel I always seek out libraries and  bookstores.  If there are none, I always manage to find someplace to browse books--flea markets, street vendors, gift shops, tourist bureaus, hotel lobbies, variety stores, gas stations--all sorts of places have books.                                                                                                                                            

Monday

                                                
                                                    

                                                    OR are you reading at all?

Yesterday I finished the amazing (as in 5 * amazing) An Unnecessary Woman. This got so deep in my head that I couldn't start another book, nor could I finish any that I had laid aside. A quote from the book says it all:

      “I thought I’d be reading a new book today, but it doesn’t feel right, or I don’t feel like it. Some days are not new-book days.”

I did some online housekeeping and watched a NCAA basketball game.

So what about today?  Another quote  (this book is full of great quotes and quotations):

    “Reading a fine book for the first time is as sumptuous as the first sip of orange juice that breaks the fast in Ramadan….I adjust myself in the reading chair, pull  my legs up. It’s going to be a long, voluptuous ride. The problem is to find a "fine book." 

 The protagonist in the book is surrounded by stacks of unread books and she usually takes the one on the top of a stack. It's usually the most recently acquired.

I am also surrounded by stacks of TBRs.  My stacks have a few added dimensions:  Library books, review copies, and the Kindle.  Library books are stacked by date due, ARCs by date of publication. If it's already been published and has tons of reviews, it's apt to sift to the bottom since I'm not good at writing reviews.  The Kindle has books I own, library books, and a dreaded ARC or two.  I love the Kindle but I don't like electronic ARCs.

So what do I do today?  I've already scooped the snow off the back steps and tossed down the ice melt, prepared a grocery list, and I'm in the comfy chair. 

Best option for today is probably non-fiction or short stories or may re-read some of the classics that are mentioned in An Unnecessary Woman.  Is Spinoza my answer? Project Gutenberg here I come!  Or not.

Maybe the Bill Gates recommended The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Sounds easier than Spinoza.

Sigh, maybe I'll go to Peapod.com and start another grocery list.