Posted on

A Chinese Classic Journeys to the West: Julia Lovell’s Translation of “Monkey King”

EXCEPT FOR THE one error I spotted on its cover, Julia Lovell’s new translation of Monkey King: Journey to the West is the best English edition of the classic Chinese fantasy novel, Xi You Ji (literally “west journey record”), I have ever read. If you wish to understand why Monkey King has been a fixture in Chinese popular culture for no fewer than five centuries, then look no further. Pick up this edition and you will join the 1.5 billion people who, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman’s comment on the tale, share in their DNA an intimate knowledge of the havoc-wreaking Monkey’s herculean journey westward to find a special collection of Buddhist sutras in India. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Supply-Chain Snarls Delay Books

The churning disruption in the global supply chain, which has touched everything from minivans to dishwashers to sweaters, has now reached the world of books, just as the holiday season — a crucial time for publishers, and a period that can make or break the entire year for an independent bookstore — approaches. Publishers are postponing some release dates because books aren’t where they need to be. Older books are also being affected as suppliers struggle to replenish them. Read more

Posted on

The Owner of The Mysterious Bookshop Built His Dream House

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good 60,000 books must be in want of a very big house. At some point in the mid-1980s, Otto Penzler, the indefatigable founder and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop, the Manhattan store specializing in fictitious tales of crime and espionage and whodunits of a high order, could no longer ignore the evidence: His personal collection of first editions had outgrown his office, and cartons containing the overflow were stashed in a pal’s garage. They needed a room of their own. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

Set during a pandemic, and charting the life of a sculptor who becomes infected by a deadly virus, Sarah Hall’s new novel is finely wrought, intellectually brave and emotionally honest, writes Stuart Kelly. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales

All but one of the stories in the forthcoming The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales have never been published in English before. The book, which is due out from Princeton University Press on 19 October, collects 20 fairytales published between 1875 and 1914, following Italy’s political unification. It brings together stories from Collodi, Domenico Comparetti (regarded as the Italian Grimm for his work gathering fairytales from around the country), and Grazia Deledda, the only Italian woman to have received the Nobel prize in literature. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Margaret Atwood and JM Coetzee demand release of jailed Iranian writers

The writers began a collective 15-and-a-half-year sentence at Evin Prison in Tehran in September 2020, on what writers’ association PEN America said were “spurious” national security and propaganda charges. Since then, Abtin and Khandan Mahabadi have both contracted Covid-19. Abtin is a poet, screenwriter and film-maker; Bajan is a novelist and journalist; and Khandan Mahabadi is an author and literary critic. Read more

Posted on

I love books about books. Here are seven of my current favorites.

Gary Goodman helped establish Stillwater, Minn., as another “book town,” one deliberately modeled on the celebrated Welsh original, Hay-on-Wye. In Goodman’s witty, self-deprecating account of impulsively buying a crummy used bookstore, gradually improving its stock, and eventually meeting notable fellow dealers here and abroad (including McMurtry and Hay’s “King” Richard Booth), his tone periodically grows elegiac. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)