Books with pictures. The new book by Pepe Serrano, one of my favorite living writers. In reality it has two recent developments, a sunny friday (illustrations by Raquel Samitier) and The shoe hypnotist (illustrations by Ernesto Navarro). Among his books, I love it The amazing journey of Mr. Bianchi’s voice. Paloñeco, bone, plum, log and again paloñeco, by Vojtech Masek and illustrations by Chrudos Valousek (Barret). And one that I have not read but that I bought to read with my children – but it cannot compete with the Garrapata saga: The animal familyby Randall Jarrell, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak (Ediciones Ekaré).
Books with lyrics. Knife. Meditations after an assassination attempt, by Salman Rushdie (Random House), is a book about love, friendship and literature. Rushdie tells of the attack he suffered in New York, thirty years after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on him. He received fifteen stab wounds that kept him between life and death for several days. There are reflections about the supernatural in his books and a search for the coincidences that led to the attack and his recovery. Paul Auster’s death made me sad especially for Rushdie: he has buried many friends.
An involuntary leitmotif. I have realized that I have read several books in which abuse is told, but the person telling it rebels against the fact that the abuse and its story are where their identity or uniqueness resides. I think above all of Two or three things that are clear to me (Errata naturae), by Dorothy Allison, which is a book that was born to be read by her in theaters and in Eight (Chai editor), by Amy Fusselman, which I wrote about recently. The matter appears in Box 19, by Claire-Louise Bennett (Bad Lands), among many other things. The narrator of Box 19 It has no name; Through chapters of different lengths we accompany her in remembering and reviewing her relationship with books: reading and writing follow the same path. The novel is something like an investigation into the origin of the narrator’s impulse to write and it is also a post-postmodern novel: it is not a classic plot novel, nor is it pure fiction or a novel, it is a novel that in As soon as you open its guts it spits out essays.
I insist, sorry. Dear friend, from my life I write to your life, by Yiyun Li (Chai editor), and something I’ve said so much I’m embarrassed to say: Annie Ernaux. Cabaret Voltaire has published its second novel, What they say or nothing.
Short book without (almost) drawings. my private propertyby Mary Ruefle (Kriller 71), this is great and has no drawings. Why Perec?, by Kim Nguyen Baraldi (The Broken Nail), with 236 reasons to love/read Perec. It is a Perechian book about Perec and the drawing is at the end and is by Perec.
Writer about writer. Bee furious with its honey. Portrait of Mercè Rodoredaby Mercè Ibarz, is an exemplary book as a portrait of a writer.
An artifact. Literary criticism in the ninetiesby Miguel Alcázar, in The broken nail.
Successes (or as an editor said in a book promotional letter, “winning gift”). The revelation, from AM Homes (Anagrama); the stories of Alice Munro (Lumen), those of Cynthia Ozick (Lumen), those of Grace Paley (Anagrama), those of Bonnie Jo Campbell (Dirty Works), those of Deborah Eisenberg (Chai editor).
