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Books

Book Review: A Norwegian Ghost Story

Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse. Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls. Dalkey Archive Press, 120 pages, $12.95. Reviewed by Bill Marx On September 10, Norwegian writer Jon Fosse became the third recipient of the International Ibsen Award, following such theatrical heavy hitters as French director Ariane Mnouchine (2008) and Peter Brook (2009). […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Aliss at the Fire, Books, Jon Fosse, World Books

Fuse Books: Edith Wharton’s The Mount Sponsors the First Annual Berkshire Wordfest

With the establishment of Wordfest, a celebration of writing in America with talks, interviews, panels, and book signings, The Mount seems to be coming into its own in ways that make it more alive than ever before. By Roberta Silman When we first built our home in the Berkshires in the early 70s, I remember […]

By: Roberta Silman Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: Books, Edith Wharton, Garrison Keillor, Roberta Silman, the Berkshires, The Mount, Wordfest

Book Commentary: Summer Reads for Adventurous Minds

Poetry’s secret, it seems to me, consists of two ingredients: a love of this world and a curiosity about metaphysics. – Durs Grünbein, The Bars of Atlantis I resist the idea that books for the beach have to go down as easy as piña coladas. My eccentric and eclectic list of fiction and non-fiction in […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Aharon Appelfeld, Albert Cossery, Alejandro Zambra, Antal Szerb, Books, Dubravka-Ugresic, Durs Grünbein, fiction-in-translation, José Saramago, Karl O. Knausgaard, nonfiction-in-translation, Patrik Ouředník, translation, World Books, Yoko Ogawa

Book Review: A Rat’s Tale

Readers should not be put off by the title, for this is a splendid novel, interesting in the risks it takes, in its ambition and scope—a book that deserves to be savored and discussed. Rat by Fernanda Eberstadt, Knopf, 304 pages, $25.95 Reviewed by Roberta Silman They have always been with us, those “casual offspring,” […]

By: Roberta Silman Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: Books, Fernanda Eberstadt, fiction, Rat, Roberta Silman

World Books: In Search of a Saudi Tolstoy

By Bill Marx Saudi Arabian author Abdo Khal won the $60,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arab Booker) for his novel Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles, which is also known as She Throws Sparks. Taleb Alrefai, who served as chair for this year’s panel of judges, said, “The winning novel is a brilliant […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Podcast, World Books Tagged: Abdo Khal, Arab Booker, Books, dissident-writing, Jonathan-Levi, Middle-East, Podcast

World Books: Digging “The Foundation Pit”

By Bill Marx In the latest World Books podcast I talk to Robert Chandler, who along with his wife Elizabeth and Olga Meerson has translated Andrey Platonov’s novel “The Foundation Pit” for New York Review Books.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, Podcast, World Books Tagged: Andrey Platonov, book-reviews, Books, Featured, Robert Chandler, The Foundation Pit, World Books

World Books: Writing About China’s Earthquake — A Year Later

By Liao Yiwu, Wen Huang, and Bill Marx Each time a disaster hits China, we all become refugees and strangers in our own land. — Liao Yiwu Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, 50, revisits the earthquake damaged Gu Temple in the town of Jiezi in the Sichuan Province. He was interviewing May 12th survivors for his […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Books, earthquake, Featured, Liao-Yiwu, Sichuan, wen-huang, World Books

Theater Review: “Bacchae” to Basics

Sometimes I wonder if Euripides saw the very texture of reality as ironic. Saw the gods in their interactions with human beings as essentially playing. A frightening idea. But at least it entails the assumption that Euripides himself was not playing. Anne Carson, in her introduction to her translation of Euripides’ “Orestes” in “An Oresteia.” […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, Theater, World Books Tagged: An-Oresteia, Anne-Carson, Books, Euripides, Featured, Frances-Blessington, Meg-Taintor, Persona Non Grata, The-Bacchae, Theater, Whistler-in-the-Dark-theater, World Books

World Books @ PEN World Voices Festival – A Critical Thought or Two

Widening literary perspectives is admirable, but as the festival matures somebody at PEN has to decide what World Voices is supposed to be. By Bill Marx My admittedly small sampling of the 5th Anniversary of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York last week left me feeling baffled. I attended seven […]

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Books, Chad-Post, Featured, PEN-World-Voices-Festival-of-International-Literature, World Books, world-books.-World-Voices

Book Review: A Sane Sense of a Warped World

By Anna Razumnaya An erudite, absorbing, and often very funny account of Russia’s pathological inability to condemn the Communist Party. Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia, by Jonathan Brent. Atlas & Co. Publishers, 335 pages A certain jealous vigilance is to be expected when a Russian reads a book about Russia written by […]

By: Anna Razumnaya Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Anna-Razumnaya, Atlas-&-Co-Publishers, Books, Featured, Gori, Inside-the-Stalin-Archives:-Discovering-the-New-Russia, Jonathan-Brent, Museum-of-Revolution, Stalin-Museum, World Books

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  • tim jackson January 25, 2021 at 12:28 pm on Book Review: “Freak Out! My Life with the Mothers of Invention” — Intimate ObservationsThis sounds (literally) compelling. I've been plowing through audiobooks these days and prefer non-fiction to fiction on audio. This may...
  • Mary-Jane Doherty January 23, 2021 at 5:09 pm on Film Review: “Pieces of a Woman” — “They give birth astride of a grave…”Thank you for this review. After the opening continuous take - riveting, as all say - I spent much of...
  • Gerald Peary January 21, 2021 at 11:47 am on Film Commentary — Roger Ebert: A Contrarian ViewYes, Alex, I am alive and kicking. Sorry you didn't like either review you read by me. That's your prerogative....
  • Alex January 21, 2021 at 4:04 am on Film Commentary — Roger Ebert: A Contrarian View*edit* and the “nonsensical, ahistorical nonsense” (yes, that’s redundant, I now see) I mentioned early in my comment was in...
  • Alex January 21, 2021 at 3:55 am on Film Commentary — Roger Ebert: A Contrarian ViewThis is very old, of course, but I only just discovered your name when I was searching for a plot...

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