what are you reading right now?

[chowder julius]

i fell asleep imagining i was in the place he described in the first chapter. really feeling naturalist type stuff this time of year, good complement to hamsun's pan in that respect. perfect march reading

[alaska]

Anybody have any recommendations from the Man Booker longlist? Olga Tokarczuk and Samanta Schweblin are pretty well-known in here, but the rest are new to me.

Jokha Alharthi, Celestial Bodies (Sandstone Press Ltd)
Can Xue, Love In The New Millennium (Yale University Press)
Annie Ernaux, The Years (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Hwang Sok-yong, At Dusk (Scribe, UK)
Mazen Maarouf, Jokes For The Gunmen (Granta, Portobello Books)
Hubert Mingarelli, Four Soldiers (Granta, Portobello Books)
Marion Poschmann, The Pine Islands (Profile Books, Serpent's Tail)
Samanta Schweblin, Mouthful Of Birds (Oneworld)
Sara Stridsberg, The Faculty Of Dreams (Quercus, MacLehose Press)
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Shape Of The Ruins (Quercus, MacLehose Press)
Tommy Wieringa, The Death Of Murat Idrissi(Scribe, UK)
Alia Trabucco Zeran, The Remainder (And Other Stories)

no recs (i did love the tokarzcuk i read, "house of day, house of night") but thanks for reposting this list!

[mercenaries of slime]

can xue is great

[hadlex]

Just remembered NYRB added this to the cover of their edition of The Door



after the Times Book Review awarded it a top-ten spot.

I *get* why publishers do this, but as far as NYRB Classics goes, I wonder what percentage of their overall sales occurs in bookstores? Completely anecdotal, but of the dozens of their books I own, I think maybe two of them were purchased at a brick-and-mortar store. (Additionally, whether a book won an award or received a rave review from a big-name publication rarely factors in whether I buy it.)

I remember reading an interview with some bookstore owners who said that NYRBs get stolen more than any other type of book.

I always get kind of excited when I see them out in the wild. Cool bookstores often have an NYRB section.

[adam sampler]

[reversemigraine]

The imaginary interview with Richard Pryor's sister is something.

[chowder julius]

Just remembered NYRB added this to the cover of their edition of The Door



after the Times Book Review awarded it a top-ten spot.

I *get* why publishers do this, but as far as NYRB Classics goes, I wonder what percentage of their overall sales occurs in bookstores? Completely anecdotal, but of the dozens of their books I own, I think maybe two of them were purchased at a brick-and-mortar store. (Additionally, whether a book won an award or received a rave review from a big-name publication rarely factors in whether I buy it.)

I remember reading an interview with some bookstore owners who said that NYRBs get stolen more than any other type of book.

I always get kind of excited when I see them out in the wild. Cool bookstores often have an NYRB section.

i never realized I was so spoiled in that all the new and used bookstores around me are heavily stocked with nyrb titles. i own probably three dozen at least and all but six or eight of them were picked up organically (and almost all used)

[alaska]

i just started candide today having never really read it before. it makes me want to weep

[chowder julius]

really looking forward to putting march to bed and getting into some horny books for spring. i have some unread nin and a cute copy of de sade's Justine

[virile]

cj why can't you get horny in march

[chowder julius]

me reading erotica in the park until i'm sunburned

[chowder julius]

cj why can't you get horny in march

i got tricked into reading nobel winners this month which is like the most ANTI horny thing possible

[alaska]

oh shit i gotta read de sade lollll

[chowder julius]

oh shit i gotta read de sade lollll

i have actually never read anything by him. i do highly recommend venus in furs by sacher-masoch tho for something brisk and short and literary but also horny af. one of my favorite reads from last year

[virile]

cj why can't you get horny in march

i got tricked into reading nobel winners this month which is like the most ANTI horny thing possible

oh man sorry to hear it can you do that thing where you slide a dirty book inside your other book and no one is the wiser

[chowder julius]

i prefer to let my freak flag fly tyvm

[chowder julius]

[virile]

so basically then there are just no nobel books about doin it

[Eyeball Kid]

I read The 120 Days of Sodom late last year and because it had this cover (NSFW: bare butt photo)

Toggle Spoiler

I had to keep the cover from being visible when I took it out in public.

[chowder julius]

i read kathy acker's blood and guts in high school while having my hair colored and there are lots of drawings of genitals in that and I am positive my stylist saw them

[alaska]

blood and guts in high school is fucking wild lol

the drawing where she has her hands cupped around a dick randomly pops into my head sometimes

[alaska]

oh shit i gotta read de sade lollll

i have actually never read anything by him. i do highly recommend venus in furs by sacher-masoch tho for something brisk and short and literary but also horny af. one of my favorite reads from last year

nice ok will do

[crash.landing]

For those just getting into de Sade, I highly recommend reading the essay "Sade" by Maurice Blanchot. He gives a very concise philosophical context and analysis of Sade's main (philosophical) concepts. That is, if you're into theory/philosophy as well as the literary porn.

[incoherent grunting]

Up next!:

Very mediocre!

I'm going to re-read Bolano's Last Evenings on Earth before diving back in and finishing Dune.

The Spanish version of Last Evenings on Earth is called Llamadas Telefónicas which means Telephone Calls and has a cool original cover - all the Anagrama versions have very cool covers - except for 2666 which the Gustave Moreau painting can't be beat

[the upland trout]

Up next:

My girlfriend got this for me and we will be reading it together, though she will be reading it in Turkish.

how is this? looks up my alley.

It's pretty good? I've still not made up my mind and my pleasure-reading time has dwindled recently, so I'm making slow progress.

The writing is not super interesting, though it's not bad either. However I am enjoying reading it and I don't know too much about Turkish history and culture, so reading this book has been very interesting. Half of the time I spend with it is spent googling various references and historical events.

[the upland trout]

[i_am_agriculture]

can xue is great

I'm gonna check her stuff out, thanks!

[incoherent grunting]

can anyone recommend sort-of-psychedelic vibe novels like Crying of Lot 49, PKD, etc.. not about drugs, but kind disorienting and weird (for lack of better term)?

[the upland trout]

can anyone recommend sort-of-psychedelic vibe novels like Crying of Lot 49, PKD, etc.. not about drugs, but kind disorienting and weird (for lack of better term)?

Motorman by David Ohle
The Beak Doctor by Eric Basso
The Great Lover by Michael Cisco
Minor Angels by Antoine Volodine
Maldoror by Lautreamont
Ice by Anna Kavan
Life in the Folds by Henri Michaux
The Beetle Leg by John Hawkes
The Other Side by Alfred Kubin
Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima
Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Clarice Lispector... Wilson Harris?

Lots of good stuff here: https://www.wakefieldpress.com/index.html

[crash.landing]

can anyone recommend sort-of-psychedelic vibe novels like Crying of Lot 49, PKD, etc.. not about drugs, but kind disorienting and weird (for lack of better term)?

Anything by Richard Brautigan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Brautigan