Weekday Updates
New subscribers/followers: Thanks for taking the plunge . . . I promise not to waste your time!
First, some notes:
Today’s post refreshes a handful of earlier lists: Polyvocals, Cli-fi/Queer Sci-fi, Skinny Novels, Books in Translation, and Four-Daughter and Two-Girls Novels.
A little over a year ago, I posted Small Press Report [1]. Feels like time to work on Small Press Report [2] . . . which involves you. Here’s the encouragement/instruction I posted then.1 We have many more subscribers and followers these days, which will give us a big bump in small-press book suggestions . . . right?
Reprise of note atop Two Girls (minus the typo): David’s Lists 2.0 does lists. I think lists ought to look like lists, so I don’t gum them up with backstory, bibliographica, personal history, dollops of wry commentary, and the like. That stuff I save for the Footnotes.
1. POLYVOCALS:
https://longd.substack.com/p/polyvocal-2
Stigmata of Bliss, Klaus Merz (2021)
The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century, Olga Ravn (2018) [trans. from Danish by Martin Aitken (2020)]2
Killing Mr. Watson, Peter Matthiessen (1990)
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)3
2. CLI-FI:
https://longd.substack.com/p/reading-projects-11-cli-fi
All the Water in the World, Eiren Caffall (2025)4
Private Rites, Julia Armfield (2024)
In This Ravishing World [stories] Nina Schuyler (2024)
Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang (2023)
Greenwood, Michael Christie (2020)
The Death of Grass, Sam Youd [writing as John Christopher] (1956)
[Some cli-fi links5]
3. QUEER SCI-FI:
The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (2020)
The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders (2019)
This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019)6
Autonomous, Annalee Newitz (2017)
[See Note:7]
4. SLENDER NOVELS:
https://longd.substack.com/p/the-skinny-on-slender-novels-1
Orbital, Samantha Harvey (2023)8
Mammoth, Eva Baltasar (2022)
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (2021)9
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, Donald Antrim (1993)10
Sylvia, Leonard Michaels (1992)11
Many, many others12
4. WORKS IN TRANSLATION:
https://longd.substack.com/p/fiction-in-translation-3
https://longd.substack.com/p/fiction-in-translation-2
https://longd.substack.com/p/fiction-in-translation-1
As you know, I’m an Archipelago Books fanboy. So’s Rick Moody:
“Literature in translation is essential to the growth and development of writing in the United States. Without the breadth of styles and ideas about form that we get from Europe, Asia, and Africa, we are a crabbed small thing. That’s why I work hard to read what’s available from abroad. And I know of no press operating now that does a better job of packaging and promoting literature in translation than Archipelago Books. Their every release is a gift in my mailbox, and I look forward to them as such.”
Today’s translation adds are from the longlist of the most recent National Book Awards for Translated Literature.13
[Some of the presses: Restless Books, Deep Vellum Publishing, Charco Books, Graywolf Press, Scribner, New Directions, Transit Books, New Vessel Press, Open Letter Books, Europa Editions.]
Taiwan Travelogue, Shuang-Zi Yang (2020) [trans. from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, 2024]14 [Taiwan (Republic of China)]
The Book Censor's Library, Bothayna Al-Essa (2019) [trans. from Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain (2024)]15 [Kuwait]
The Villain's Dance, Fiston Mwanza Mujila (2020) [trans. from French by Roland Glasser (2024)]16 [Democratic Republic of Congo]
Not a River, Selva Almada (2020) [trans. from Spanish by Annie McDermott (2024)]17 [Argentina]
Pink Slime, Fernanda Trías (2020) [trans. from Spanish by Heather Cleary (2024)]18 [Uruguay]
Change, Édouard Louis (2021) [trans. from French by John Lambert (2024)19 [France]
The Silver Bone, Andrey Kurkov (2020) [trans. from Russian by Boris Dralyuk (2024)]20 [Ukraine]
Traces of Enayat, Iman Mersal (2023) [trans. from Arabic by Robin Moger (2023)]21 [Egypt]
Season of the Swamp, Yuri Herrera (2022) [trans. from Spanish by Lisa Dillman (2024)22 [Mexico]
5. FOUR DAUGHTER NOVELS:
https://longd.substack.com/p/four-sisters
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, Sara Loyster (2021)23
Things I Want My Daughters to Know, Elizabeth Noble (2007)
6. TWO GIRLS NOVELS:
Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood (1998)24
Some links:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/lit-lists/world-literature-todays-75-notable-translations-2024-michelle-johnson
A Reminder:
The Birth Year Project: is still open for business . . .
You supply your birth year, I respond with a summary of books published that year—the popular/well-known titles first, then some I'd recommend. If your year's already been done, I'll do an update. So far, we’ve done 21 years (I think), between 1939 and 1989.
[Note: The BYP Index in navigation bar is still messed up, the fix for which I’ve yet to discover. The newest ones, not in index: 1955, 1960, 1939, and 1954.]
Extra credit: You read one of the books (ideally one you're unfamiliar with), then tell me what you thought. If we get enough of these, I'll aggregate and post.
What I Need Your Help With:
Good books that aren’t read fall into two categories: ones that have been forgotten and ones that were never known. Excellent-but-not-remembered books get most of the attention on this Substack. Today I want us to look at the other sort.
Over six months of posts, I’ve listed a number of works you’re less likely to know. Here’s a list of twenty or so. Most titles in this list (all but the oldest several) have in common that they were published by a semi-small/independent press. One reason I happened onto them is that I pay attention to what certain presses publish—in particular, Charo Press, Europa Editions, & Other Stories, and Archipelago Books. Also in this list books from Astra Publishing House, Arcade Publishing, and Unbound.
There are many more such publishers: Graywolf, Milkweed Editions, Coffee House, Tin House, Two Dollar Radio, Catapult, BOA Editions, Akashic Books, Dorothy, Counterpoint, Deep Vellum, Persephone Books, McSweeney's, Open Letter, Dzanc, etc.
You may have read their books without paying attention to the imprint, but you probably recognize some or most of the names.
Then there are the even smaller, even more indie, even more labor-of-love/obsession endeavors. How many of these are you aware of: Vine Leaves Press, Amble Press, Forest Avenue Press, Mad Hat, Clash, Feral House, House of Anansi Press, Braddock Avenue Books, Bellevue Literary Press, Microcosm, Baobab Press, Hawthorne, The Third Thing?
As we know, there are so many books published today it’s extremely difficult for individual titles to stand out—we’re being inundated not just with the books, but with new marketing schemes, book-launch hoopla, video teasers, and whatever else a press can come up with to gain traction. Lotsa noise.
So, finally, my request:
I’d like to begin addressing the second category I mentioned above—books that were never known—by turning to the contribution of small presses. Many of you have read, even own, small press books you really admire. I’d like you to call our attention to one (or more) of those. I’ll curate a list from what you suggest (and a few other sources) and post when it hits critical mass.
Note: A couple of footnotes are missing from the above—the list of twenty titles, and a note about the Unbound publishing project. Here’s a link to the original post:
The Employees: Work and life aboard a ship in deep space. Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and in 2022 for the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize.
[I have now read this. This has had fair amount of attention, been raved about by some. It’s the kind of book I might have raved about, too—strange/daring presentation, futuristic, original, translated . . . but it didn’t do its work completely, felt undercooked. I really think it needed another draft or two. Again, I’m in the minority here. I read a review in The Atlantic—the one “pan” cited at LitHub’s Bookmarks, and found myself agreeing. This said, it’s a book worth checking out.]
Tan: As it happens, last night I watched an episode of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s genealogy series, Finding Your Roots, devoted to Amy Tan and Rita Dove:
https://www.pbs.org/video/stranger-than-fiction-pleuzj/
And one more vital tidbit of intel: Tan was a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Bottom_Remainder
As it happens, I subscribe to Eiren’s Substack: Never Turn Your Back on Mother Nature:
https://eirencaffall.substack.com
Cli-fi links:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/climate-fiction/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/best-cli-fi-books-sarah-ruiz- grossman_l_660c46a0e4b09f580bc5b387
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/26/stories-to-save-the-world-the-new-wave-of-climate-fiction
Time War:
Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for Best Novella.
Queer Sci-fi: This is a burgeoning category. Since I (mainly) avoid fantasy, and since lists of queer speculative novels often don’t distinguish between “fantasy” and “sci-fi,” I’m adding only a few titles here. Check out more at:
https://www.queerscifi.com
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/queer-sci-fi
https://www.powells.com/featured/queer-reads-from-sci-fi-and-fantasy-2022?srsltid=
Orbital: The International Space Station circumnavigates the Earth sixteen times a day—sixteen sunrises, sixteen sunsets, as witnessed by its international crew of six. Science/fact plus interior meditation. 2024 Booker winner, along with a handful of other awards.
Keegan: A lovely, wise writer. [Arr-lan’]
https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/claire-keegan-interview-small- things-like-these
Donald Antrim: His first novel. Surreal black humor.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/07/08/lost-stories-donald-antrim
https://www.bookforum.com/print/1902/donald-antrim-s-surreal-existential-triptych-9477
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2013/donald-antrim
Michaels:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-donkey-will-know-remembering- leonard-michaels
From Goodreads:
First acclaimed as a story-length memoir, then expanded into a novel, Sylvia draws us into the lives of a young couple whose struggle to survive Manhattan in the early 1960s involves them in sexual fantasias, paranoia, drugs, and the extreme intimacy of self-destructive violence. Reproducing a time and place with extraordinary clarity, Leonard Michaels explores with self-wounding honesty the excruciating particulars of a youthful marriage headed for disaster.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3914.Sylvia
Many others: A couple of links:
https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-under-200-pages/
Brad Bigelow runs a site called The Neglected Books Page (a deep box of books worth saving from the oubliette)—one of its subheadings is Wafer-Thin Books—access it here:
https://neglectedbooks.com/?cat=1163
But the quickest way to look through this incredibly rich trove is via its Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=%23waferthinbook
Bookmark it!
Longlisted for National Book Award for Translated Literature:
https://www.nationalbook.org/2024-national-book-awards-longlist-for-translated-literature]
Taiwan Travelogue: The 2024 winner.
https://www.nationalbook.org/books/taiwan-travelogue/
Book Censor: She’s a major Kuwaiti writer and publisher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothayna_El_Essa
Villain’s Dance: On my TBR list—I relished Tram 83, an earlier shortish novel. From Goodreads: “Tram 83 plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as, sometimes, comic and colorfully exotic.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiston_Mwanza_Mujila
Almada: Widely praised contemporary Argentinian writer. I’ve read a couple of her books from Charco (Edinburgh): The Wind That Lays Waste (2012) and Brickmakers (2013).
Pink Slime:
“Evocative, dreamlike, and immersive . . . The disconcerting familiarity of this strange, windswept world will haunt you.” —Esquire
Change: Blurbage borrowed from [can’t remember]:
At the young age of 30, Édouard Louis looms large as one of France’s most widely read authors. His novels, which have recounted his experience growing up poor and gay in a small village in France’s post-industrial northern region, deal with themes of poverty, alcoholism and racism. The French literary darling's newest work is another romp of scathing, laugh-out-loud autofiction, picking up where his acclaimed "The End of Eddy" left off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Louis
Kurkov:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/10/ukrainian-writer-andrey-kurkov-i-felt-guilty-writing-fiction-in-a-time-of-war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kurkov
Longlisted for the 2024 International Booker; a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2024.
Blurbage: From Ukraine's most celebrated novelist, "a gift for crime fiction fans" (New York Times Book Review) that introduces rookie detective Samson Kolechko in Kyiv as he tackles his first case, set against real life details of the tumultuous early twentieth century.
[Aside: Two summers ago, my son and I were in London and learned that Kurkov would be reading from his newest novel [Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv (2023)] at Daunt Books Marlebone that night. Alas, we were whipped from the flight from Seattle and couldn’t talk ourselves into rising to the occasion. Um, damn.]
Mersal: Blurbage: This genre-bending work, which the publisher calls a biographical detective story, traces the famed Arab poet's rediscovery of a forgotten Egyptian literature heroine. It is fascinating to ride along on the author's life altering quest to find this largely forgotten author.
https://tertulia.com/book/traces-of-enayat-iman-mersal/9781945492846
https://wordswithoutborders.org/contributors/view/iman-mersal/
Swamp: Starred reviews everywhere. Lisa Dillman won the the Best Translated Book Award for an earlier novel by Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World (2015). I started reading this new one this morning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Herrera
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit: This is a YA novel. Typically, I don’t include these, but this is a special case.
If you don’t recognize the title: it’s the name of a famous group portrait by John Singer Sargent; it hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Art (donated by the daughters in honor of their father). I bought a print of it long ago; it’s hung in my dining room for forty years—moody, somewhat enigmatic, visually seductive. The four girls in white dresses, framed by a a slash of red. Sargent was a phenomenal painter—we know him for his society portraits, but his art life was wider than that. There have been several retrospective pieces on him recently—one on the attire in his portraits, another, in The New Yorker details his connection to the Boit family. This painting has a place in my heart I can’t quite explain. Learning about the lives of the women they became is illuminating (and sad). Sargent somehow manages to prefigure them in the poses and expressions.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sara-loyster/the-daughters-of-edward-darley-boit/
https://www.lindahugues.com/blog/john-singer-sargent-portrait-technique
And: Erica E. Hirshler, a curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts wrote a book on the painting: Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting (2009).
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n15/ruth-bernard-yeazell/maisie-s-sisters
Atwood: Special thanks to subscriber Russell Brown for reminding us of this one.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51019.Cat_s_Eye
https://therestingwillow.com/2023/06/23/book-review-cats-eye-by-margaret-atwood/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/apr/16/margaret-atwood-cats-eye-reading-group
Thanks for the link to novellas! I need to read one for the reading challenge I’m participating in.