Click here to read the abstract of the story on The New Yorker webpage (this week’s story is available only for subscribers). Jonathan Lethem’s “Pending Vegan” was originally published in the April 7, 2014 issue of The New Yorker. I’m hit and miss with Jonathan Lethem. We’ll have thoughts up soon. In the meantime, please leave
It’s a shame that through the Best Translated Book Award I’ve come to know a couple of authors by books that function almost as suicide notes — or, rather, we read them like that because they talk of death and depression (and suicide) and then shortly after their publication the author has taken his (no women to date) own life. Such
I was thrilled last year when FSG published three novels from Icelandic author Sjón. I’d seen the British press covering them for a few years, and they always looked so intriguing. One of them, The Whispering Muse (Argóarflísin, 2005; tr. from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb, 2012), has found its way on to the Best Translated Book Award
One thing I love about the Best Translated Book Award is that it looks at what it considers to be the best translated books, regardless of when they were first written. Regardless, in fact, of whether the author is still alive and can claim their honor (and the $5,000 prize). Consequently, on the longlist we’ll
Episodes of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast: discussions of books and authors, shaped by curiosity, rereading, and the pleasures of talking things through.
The Mookse and the Gripes Instagram features a more immediate space with posts and videos about current reads, recent finds, including a steady dose of Criterion films.
