“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” NPR reminds us of this great quote from Haruki Murakami before rounding up its five favorite books in translation for 2016, including Yoko Tawada‘s Memoirs of a Polar Bear (originally published in German) and The Clouds by Juan José Saer. And from our archives: translator Alison Anderson on “Ferrante Fever” and what a great translation adds to the original work.
Best in Translation
Catton Craze
Eleanor Catton just became the youngest person ever to win a Man Booker, but we were fans of her long before. Our own Emily St. John Mandel included Catton’s debut novel The Rehearsal on her list of disorienting reads. Paul Murray also recommended the book on his 2012 Year in Reading.
Tuesday New Release Day
Martin Amis’ The Pregnant Widow is out today (Kakutani sez, “remarkably tedious” but The Guardian adds, “Amis might draw comfort from the long and distinguished list of Kakutani’s literary victims.”) Also out, Sebastian Junger’s War, the result of time spent embedded with a platoon of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan.
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Tuesday Links: Power, ReCaptcha, Junot Diaz
Experience “THE POWER OF BOOKS“You know those annoying puzzles where you type in the letters so the computer knows you’re not a computer creating a fake account or sending spam? A group from Carnegie Mellon is using these “Captchas” to help digitize books. ReCaptcha is a special type of Captcha that displays words that book digitization software is having trouble deciphering. So, by letting the computer know you’re not a computer, you can help some other computers digitize our books.I missed Junot Diaz’s appearance at the Free Library of Philadelphia where he read from his new novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but Season Evans was there.
Greatest Summer Reads
Still looking for summer book recommendations after checking our 2015 Second-Half Preview? We’re not sure we believe you, but here are fifty of the greatest summer reads as ranked by Flavorwire, just in case.
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La Buena Educacion
At The Paris Review Daily, Pedro Almodóvar tallies the elements of cinematic comedy, which include good timing, “rapid-fire dialogue” and rehearsals that draw out spontaneous performances from actors.
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