New review: Gerhard Roth's "Reise zu den Toten", 𝑂𝑟𝑘𝑢𝑠 www.complete-review.com/reviews/aust...
Orkus - Gerhard Roth
A review, and links to other information about and reviews of Orkus by Gerhard Roth.
complete-review.com
M.A.Orthofer
@maorthofer.bsky.social
The Complete Review and its Literary Saloon. [https://www.complete-review.com/main/main.html]
Me and @markkrotov.bsky.social wrote about Anne Carson and the Nobel Prize in Literature newrepublic.com/article/2164...
Anne Carson Is (Yet Another) Perfect Nobel Literature Laureate
It’s hard to argue with the Canadian poet who was awarded literature’s most prestigious award on Thursday. That may be the problem.
newrepublic.com
Anne Carson certainly a solid choice for the Nobel Prize www.nobelprize.org/prizes/liter...
Nobel Prize in Literature 2026
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2026 was awarded to Anne Carson “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literatu...
nobelprize.org
Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek's literary archive purchased by @wien.gv.at (for €600,000). presse.wien.gv.at/presse/2026/...
Wien übernimmt literarisches Archiv von Nobelpreisträgerin Elfriede Jelinek
Die Stadt Wien übernimmt den erhaltenen Teil des literarischen Archivs der Literaturnobelpreisträgerin und Wiener Ehrenbürgerin Elfriede Jelinek. Der Teilvorlass soll von der Wienbibliothek im Rathau....
presse.wien.gv.at
In the mail: ARC of @purelyfiction.bsky.social 's 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝐿𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐼𝑙𝑙𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠, from @unnamedpress.bsky.social www.unnamedpress.com/all-books/p/... Nominal first in his 'Five Strange Languages'-quintet; he says they can be read in any order, but nice to be able to start at the *official* beginning.
Stories, Like Illnesses — Unnamed Press
by James Elkins Published: October 20, 2026 ISBN: 9781961884434 Hardcover $39.00 Get the collector’s edition vinyl bundle here!
unnamedpress.com
William T. Vollmann reacting the way all authors should when their editor tells them their work needs some pruning. www.sacbee.com/news/local/a...
Many boxes of @dalkeyarchive.bsky.social ARCs still to unpack, but also finding some stray review copies I bought before I started the site (1999), including this old-style (and not white, like practically all my Dalkey galleys are) Claude Ollier, bought for US¢97 @strandbooks.com in 1993.
I mean, this is great, too, but when they say: "a comprehensive catalogue of Philip Larkin’s books" I was hoping it was of the books he 𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑒𝑑, i.e. his library, not just the ones he wrote/contributed to ..... newversereview.substack.com/p/philip-lar...
Philip Larkin by the Book
A Catalogue of Poetry with Commentary
newversereview.substack.com
Working on this reported essay, just published, increasingly took over my life for the last two months. PEN America did a terrible disservice with its sloppy reporting about American Jews and Israelis in publishing in July. Josh Lambert and I tried to do better. jewishcurrents.org/what-pen-ame...
What PEN America Got Wrong About Antisemitism in Publishing
Misleading anecdotes, flawed data, and oversimplified analyses are at the heart of a narrative of Jewish exclusion promoted by the free expression…
jewishcurrents.org
Still unpacking and shelving books. Art section (mostly my mom's books) coming along well. My mom was good friends with Robert Motherwell's wife, so I was kind of hoping one of the many Motherwell-books, catalogues, etc. might be signed, but no such luck. But ...
New review: Giwi Margwelaschwili in conversation with Jörg Sundermeier, in 𝐵𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑛 www.complete-review.com/reviews/modd...
Bedeutungswelten - Giwi Margwelaschwili
A review, and links to other information about and reviews of Bedeutungswelten by Giwi Margwelaschwili.
complete-review.com
Props to the Bangladeshi newspaper that publishes someone's "Reflections on editing festschrifts" www.thedailystar.net/culture/book...
Celebrating literary minds: Reflections on editing festschrifts
“Festschrift” is a German word coined in the 19th century by combining ”fest”, meaning “celebration” or “festival,” with ”schrift”, meaning “writing” or “script,” to signify “celebration writing” or “...
thedailystar.net
Flea market right around the corner today, so ... could ... not ... resist ..... Obviously had to pick up the reminiscences-volume by publisher Kurt Wolff. (Bonus: it's the first in the series of Wagenbach-'Quarthefte'.)
In the mail: always great to see more by Enrique Vila-Matas: his 𝐶𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑎 𝑂𝑏𝑠𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑎, in @yalepress.bsky.social Margellos World Republic of Letters-series yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
Camera Obscura
From Spain’s most celebrated author, an inventive, quietly radical novel that explores how books illuminate our livesIn Camera Obscura, Enrique Vila-Matas ...
yalebooks.yale.edu
Always good to see Nobel Prize silly-season get rolling www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/23/o... [$] (And how can you argue with: "above all, @stephenking.bsky.social should get the top prize because he’s got the chops" ? That's what the Swedish Academy is always looking for: the chops.)
Stephen King, Nobel laureate? - The Boston Globe
It sounds improbable. It shouldn’t.
bostonglobe.com
In the mail: no review copies far & wide (which is okay, for the most part), but couldn't resist an on-line-used-book-binge. Been eager to see that Furukawa for ages (& despairing of it being translated into English ...),& with these two my Nothomb collection is now almost up-to-date complete.
Remember the Penguin Classics edition of Lolita that stripped out the intro by ‘John Ray, Jr.’ (which is part of the novel)? Louise Willder, in her new book The Book Was Better, discloses that the same edition of Pale Fire was almost published without Charles Kinbote’s intro and notes…
New review: Robert Littell's debut, his 1973 novel, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐴.𝐽. 𝐿𝑒𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 www.complete-review.com/reviews/thri...
The Defection of A.J. Lewinter - Robert Littell
A review, and links to other information about and reviews of The Defection of A.J. Lewinter by Robert Littell.
complete-review.com
Can't judge its reported coding & big-maths-problems-solving capabilities, but beyond these remain amazed that anyone would rely on AI when trying to find/get any sort of *factual* information. Its one great talent (admittedly with other issues) is "creative" writing (for which it is denounced ...).
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 3w agoAI chatbots give wrong answers to financial queries ‘most of the time’ ft.trib.al/oImlEFY
Visited the Austrian 'Literaturmuseum' again yesterday, not least to check out the Thomas Bernhard exhibit again www.onb.ac.at/en/museums/l... There's an 'Ohrensessel' he designed on display, and you can sit on it. It is ridiculously uncomfortable, and not only because it is so low.
Nice to see "the first English publication of these journals in their entirety" — Cesare Pavese's 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 — came out earlier this year, but list price (even if C$ ...) 100.00 ... oof. utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/...
The Craft of Living - University of Toronto Press
The Craft of Living is a collection of journals written by Italian intellectual Cesare Pavese between 1935, when the Fascist regime exiled him to Calabria, and 1950, the year he committed suicide. This is the first English publication of these journals in their entirety.
utppublishing.com
Google search finding new ways to top itself in ever-increasing uselessness, *sigh*.
The big question. Paywalled, so I don't know which side they come down on but have to hope that it is: 'Yes, 𝑎𝑙𝑙 stories that do not interpellate us 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 be read, even if they are well-written (indeed, even if they are not).' en.ara.cat/culture/is-i...
Is it necessary to read a story that does not interpellate us, even if it is well written?
Andrea Abreu publishes 'Pajaritos preñados', her second novel, after selling 100,000 copies of her debut, 'Panza de burro'
en.ara.cat
New review: Brian Moore's 1975 novel, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 www.complete-review.com/reviews/popg... He really dreamed up something there .....
The Great Victorian Collection - Brian Moore
A review, and links to other information about and reviews of The Great Victorian Collection by Brian Moore.
complete-review.com
Sorting my books, I'm coming across some (semi-)duplicates. Wondering here what Monet would have made of his wife being considered the obvious choice for the face of Emma Bovary. (The painting is his 'Méditation. Madame Monet au canapé' www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/... .)
So I bought the German translation of Georges Simenon's 𝑇𝑒𝑑𝑑𝑦 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑟 today and have now had a look at the English translation on the Internet Archive. Translator not named on the (nicely spare) cover of the 1st US ed. but, hey, translator 'John Clay' gets a front-flap mention ...
