I don’t know how they managed to translate the thunderwords into Chinese, but if sales figures indicate success, they did a bang up job. Finnegans Wake is huge in China right now.
Finnegans Wake Hits Chinese Shelves
And the Award for Lifetime Achievement Goes to
“His life’s work, and his stunning prose, teaches us to better understand political influence, American democracy, and the true power of biography.” The National Book Foundation just announced Robert Caro as this year’s recipient of the National Book Awards lifetime achievement medal. Definitely pair with this piece by our own Michael Bourne on Caro’s epic literary ambitions.
My Struggle: Special Editions
When all is said and done, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series will consist of six published volumes. In light of the overwhelmingly positive reception for the epic Norwegian books – which have garnered heaps of praise around these parts – Archipelago Books is raising money to produce a special, hardcover edition of each installment.
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Death and Taxes
Souvankham Thammavongsa's new fiction is required reading for anyone who's ever had a meltdown in an accountant's office.
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Vote for The Millions at 3 Quarks Daily
Hey look, several pieces of ours are in the running to win 3 Quarks Daily Arts and Literature Prizes! On their voting page, you can cast your ballot for James McWilliams’s piece on Faulkner, our own Hannah Gersen’s appreciation of Friday Night Lights, or our own Nick Ripatrazone’s essay on teaching English, among other nominees.
Wednesday Links: Honorary Awards; Scottish Flood; Book Sale
Joan Didion and NPR uber-interviewer Terry Gross will be honored at the National Book Awards ceremony in November. Dideon won a National Book Award in 2005 for her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking.The National Library of Scotland flooded yesterday thanks to a faulty sprinkler system. It was a close call: “Some modern books and manuscripts suffered ‘surface’ water damage, but all of the ‘important, iconic’ books were saved.”Oops! A church in England sold some rare tomes for modest though still substantial sum to a book dealer, only to find, too late, that they are worth much, much more.
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