Services edition Graham Greene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was at the local Flea market today which over the years has turned up a few gems the Gunter grass  cat and mouse arc I found there the other year today I found something I had been looking for a while and that was an Old world war two service edition books both The Uk which is mine produced these books for the Forces Penguin then guild and other presses. The Us editions used have two novels or other books in one edition. The book I found today was The confidential agent by Graham Greene. I am a Greene fan and have his biography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sort of life and 11 of his novels < I hadn’t a copy of confidential agent as a kid I read a lot of Greene and in recent year when I start getting together all of Anthony Burgess novels together which I have nearly done there is only a couple of Burgess books left to get thanks to the new Irwell editions. My mind turned to those other writers I liked as a kid and teen Greene, Steinbeck, Hemingway and Waugh. I have got a few more Greene to get but they are something I rarely see secondhand and the ones I have left to get are his lesser novels. So I have opened the door on another project after Burgess which I still have a lot of his books to review on the blog. I also love that Greene and Burgess had a history as they lived near each other near the end of there lives and had a few run-ins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you seen any service editions? are you a fan of Graham Greene

 

A 21st century Lolita

A new arrival at Winston towers today struck a chord a may to December story ala Lolita for a new generation .Héloïse of the title is trying to seduce a doctor forty years older than herself .On press release it does say Lolita for a modern age , although I hate the term “the new ” with this book it seems hard to avoid the comparison or not to even mention it .My evening view is the wonderful debut film from Stuart Murd och of Belle and Sebastian a film inspired by his side band god help the girl which is also the title of the film .

The booker longlist is out but does it matter when most of the best books are in translation !

Well my mind has been elsewhere and it isn’t to today I’ve fully come round to thinking about the booker longlist and what last years changes meant .I did say at the time the Booker prize missed a trick by not only opening it too all books written in English but they should have included all books translated into English .That would opened a global prize ,but maybe also helped get books into translation more into the limelight ,For since the list has come out there has been many newspaper articles and blog posts written about the long list ,for me I agree with Naomi and a few others ,the list is very male and very white,as some people feared the Commonwealth seems to have suffered with the Americans coming into the prize .Now as Susan pointed out in her recent piece for the blog the time is right to get a prize or more notice for books in translation .This week is a prime example I escaped into books to find solace in fiction and thus read two of the best books I have read in the last few months Bilbao – New York – Bilbao by Kirmin Uribe a Spanish lit prize-winning novel by a basque writer ,thinking on a flight to New York about the novel he is writing about his families past in fishing , that is  forthcoming from Seren Books .The other book is Zone by Mathias Enard ,now this book came out in the US last year and is one of the first two books from the new UK publisher Fitzcarldo editions ,this book strangely again about a trip we follow a French intelligence officer on a rail trip from Milan to Rome ,it is one of those sprawling books that is hard to pin down ,but drags you into another world .Now I had two thoughts about these books ,firstly would they even get a publisher if written in English as they break the mould of what is viewed as a novel ,recent case have shown books that maybe play with the novel as form or are maybe seen as to sprawling struggle to get publishers the two examples that spring to mind are A naked singularity by Sregio de Le Pava ,that did a tour of publishers to only first come out a s a self published book ,then people saw its beauty and both publishers in the US and the UK brought it out ,like wise the prize-winning A girl is a half-formed thing had a lot of rejections before it was picked up by a new small imprint and as you all know went on to win and be shortlisted for a number of prizes .I feel what translation would have brought if include in the book is challenging fiction books that break the creative writing stranglehold and market forces that  lead fiction published  in English these days .So how are we going to get the public to get books in translation a new prize is an idea ,a European booker ? a way to generate interest and like the booker maybe for once get the one or two book lit readers instead of the booker winner or shortlisted book that they have seen in waterstones or an independent bookshop for their  two weeks in say Tuscany ,and pick a book in translation because they know it has been a prize book ! One can dream but we in translation circles have to try new ways and stop scratching are goatees and thinking how clever it all is and break down the walls .SO the booker missed the chance ,we should make our own chance and make people sit up and see what they are missing .

Winston’s year the books

Well it’s that time of year when people start putting across the best of list .I have decided to do my best of year ,given the focus of the blog it is going be just translations ,I will not I have read The luminaries and lowland both on a lot of best of list I liked both but haven’t got round to reviewing them yet ,so I’m not mentioning them .As for other books in English not translated my favourite by far is The boy from Aleppo who painted the war by Sumia Sukkar the first I ve read around the current Syrian conflict .So to the top ten of 2013 .

The mirror of beauty by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi 

I reviewed this yesterday as I want it fresh in people’s memorey the rest of the list is books I have loved but by far this is my book of the year .An epic following the mother of a well-known Urdu poet in 19th century India and actually in an update to my previous review due out in the UK may 2014 .

My review 

The son by Andrej Nikolaidis 

A son wander around the port town of Ulcinj and thinks about his father and the history of this town .Andrej shared his love of my next book in the list  and its influence on this book .

My review 

 

The loser by Thomas Bernhard 

Glenn Gould in Vienna blows away two music students and we see the aftermath of a touch with a Genius on two people’s lives .

My review 

Ten by Andrej Lingo 

A short story collection based round the ten Commandments ,around the dark underbelly of the city of Naples .This also reignited a real love of short stories in me ,more about that at a future date .

My review

Mother departs by Tadeusz Różewicz

A son looking back on his mother ,growing up ,world war two and his brother from the foremost living Polish poet .A wonderful mix of prose and poems .

My review 

My fathers ghost is climbing in the rain by Patricio Pron 

Certainly if i had a side prize for the best title of the year this book would easily walk off with it .A son returns to Argentina and discovers more about his father than he thought .

My review 

A man in love by Karl Ove Knausgaard 

I love the first part of this collection and had hopes it would carry on and was surprised part two was  even better Karl now with kids and a struggling writer in the fictionalized version of his life ,can’t wait for part three next year .

My review 

Brief loves that live forever by Andrei Makine

I have loved his other books a glimpse at soviet summers of the past and fleeting romance and lives .Makine back on form here .

My review 

The parrots by FlippoBologna

A gem of a book about writers and a book prize we meet three unnamed writers at three stages in the career as they wait to see if they have won the big book prize .

My review

Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli

A collection of non fiction writing from the wonderful Mexican writer mainly on the journey of discovery like looking for a grave in Venice .

My Review  

 

New Novella from Nikesh

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The Time Machine’ by Nikesh Shukla Galley Beggar Press Released: 16 August 2013 E-book: e-pub, mobi, pdf £1
We grew up in households where food was important. We grew up in households where the kitchen was the centre of our universes. The main family thoroughfare happened in our kitchens.
‘The Time Machine’ is a new novella about food and grief by award-winning author Nikesh Shukla.
It documents Ashok’s attempts to cook food like mum used to make in the wake of her death. If he succeeds, his time machine will have worked and he’ll be transported back to a time when the family home was alive with the sounds of cricket, the smell of food and the presence of his mother. The story is a tender, funny ode to home-cooked Gujarati cooking (‘not tandoori or balti, are you rogan joshing me?’), peppered with family recipes and outdated wisdom from over- bearing aunties.
25p from each sale of ‘The Time Machine’ will be donated to Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.
The novella deals with the universal themes of food, memory and grief. About losing a parent before you have the chance to learn everything you need to from them. About finding home.
Shukla said of the novella: ‘I lost my mum to cancer in 2010, the week my first novel came out. It’s been hard to write about anything else, think about anything else, cook anything else other than the dishes that make the world smell like a world she’s alive in. I wanted to write some sort of mawkish tribute to her legacy, which is food. She was the best cook in the world. I’ll never taste anything approaching her food again. It wasn’t about technical expertise, measurements and outlandish recipes – it was about the soul, about practice and about love. I’ve decided to give all my earnings from this piece of work to Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation to help raise awareness of this all-too common condition.’
Sam Jordison, from Galley Beggar Press, said: ‘I always knew Nikesh could write: and write damn well. That’s why I was so keen to get him involved in The Singles Club. What I didn’t know was that he’d make me want to cry too. This story is just lovely. It’s touching, funny and full of nostalgia, but never at all mawkish. It’s delicate and beautifully flavoured. And I kind of want tomake more food jokes here, but that would be out of keeping with a story that so cleverly avoids cliché and the obvious line. Let’s just stick to saying that it’s wonderful.’
Paula Chadwick, chief executive of Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, said: ‘Buy this book. Not only will you enjoy a heart-warming story, you will also be supporting us in our mission to give help and hope to everyone affected by lung cancer – the UK’s biggest cancer killer. All the money raised will go towards vital lung cancer research and providing support to patients and their families.’
Nikesh Shukla’s bio
Nikesh Shukla is a writer of fiction and television. His debut novel, Coconut Unlimited was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2010 and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2011. In 2011, Nikesh co-wrote a non-fiction essay about the riots with Kieran Yates called Generation Vexed: What the Riots Don’t Tell Us About Our Nation’s Youth. In 2008, he and film- maker Videowallah won the Satyajit Ray Foundation Best Short Film Award for ‘The Great Identity Swindle’.
His short stories have been featured in the following places: Best British Short Stories 2013, Five Dials, The Moth Magazine, Pen Pusher, The Sunday Times, Book Slam, BBC Radio 4, First City Magazine and Teller Magazine. He has written for the Guardian, Esquire and BBC 2. He has, in the past, been writer in residence for BBC Asian Network and Royal Festival Hall. His Channel 4 Comedy Lab Kabadasses aired on E4 and Channel 4 in 2011 and starred Shazad Latif, Jack Doolan and Josie Long. He hosts The Subaltern podcast, the anti-panel discussion featuring conversations with writers about writing. Guests have included Zadie Smith, Junot Diaz, Teju Cole, James Salter, George Saunders.
Galley Beggar Press
Galley Beggar Press is a new publishing company based in Norwich founded by Henry Layte, Eloise Millar and Sam Jordison.
First conceived in 2011, Galley Beggar Press is a company specifically set-up to act as a sponsor to writers who have struggled to either find or retain a publisher, and (most importantly) whose writing shows great ambition and literary merit. Our primary questions are not who someone is, or whether something is going to make it into the supermarkets. Rather, it’s whether this is an author we want, a novel we love. If the answer is yes on both counts – then, no matter how challenging a read the book is (or how obscure the author), we will set about bringing it to the widest possible public. .
Really, at Galley Beggar Press, it’s this simple: we want to produce beautiful books, and we want to be governed by the quality and verve of the writing we publish. We have faith in writers,we have faith in readers – and if we feel strongly enough about a book to want to share it, we hope and trust that others will want to read it.
Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation is a registered charity in the United Kingdom which aims to provide help and hope to people affected by lung cancer. Founded in Liverpool in 1990, it is the only UK charity to focus solely on lung cancer care. The charity has a dual focus – saving lives and supporting people affected by lung cancer. It funds lung cancer research, supports the prevention of lung cancer by encouraging and helping people to avoid or quit smoking, and raises general awareness of lung cancer and its symptoms. It also supports lung cancer patients by running support groups, providing information to the NHS, and other measures.
I’ve just copied the press release from Nikesh it’s a worthy cause and a great chance to read a book from a great young writer

Help me translation bingo 2014

Well I’m asking for some of the more tech mind of you for some help I’m wanting to do a huge translation challenge in 2014 based around bingo my idea is to produce a number of virtual bingo cards .The cards be for Western Europe ,Eastern Europe ,rest of the world ,translators and publishers in translation the idea being people could keep score get four corners a line and hopefully lots of full house .Now my help is needed in how to make these cards for the blog ? I’m not the most technically knowledgable blogger so any help or guidance be welcome I se this as a real fun way to get people reading in translation as its interactive and a challenge also be great to keep a score board of people’s achievements through out the year .Si if you have any advice on where it how to make cards that look good and are simple to do it be really welcome

A new site for archipelago book

Well it’s always nice when a publisher you like makes a real effort to improve the user experience on their site and with the new just launched site from non profit publisher Archipelago books they have spent time it seems make it a great user experience I ve a few of their books under review I advice you to take a whirl round the new site here

Authors and translators

Author’s and translators is a new blog to me I’ve seen it mention a couple of times around the web .It brings authors and Translators from around the world with interviews about the art of translation .Thanks for English pen for remind me about this great blog Authors and translators blog

Gabriel Garcia Marquez in China

Saw this earlier article is Spanish but nice to see Garcia Marquez honoured in this way a new statue in China in his honour thanks to Neustadt prize for link on twitter
Marquez in china

My first vine

My first vine

I’ve been trying to think
of how to use vine ,then decide it would be great for new books coming in to Winston towers .hope this works as posting on the phone and first time adding a video on the phone so here goes .