Read This!

If you looked at the recent media frenzy over Bolano's 2666 (even The Economist has a story about it), you'd think that translations were really hot this year. According to a translation database manually compiled by Open Letter this year, though, the percentage of new books published in the U.S. that are translations is still coming in at around 3% or lower. Open Letter's mission is to try to change all that.

A number of presses publish translations, but Open Letter (a small press out of the University of Rochester) only publishes translations. Their blog, Three Percent (based on the 3% mentioned above), has done a lot to promote international literature--it regularly features reviews, lit mags from other countries, and programs like Reading the World and Words Without Borders. This week they're previewing their Spring 2009 line-up.

Open Letter has published three books so far:

Nobody's Home, by Dubrevka Ugresic. It's easy to see why they kicked off with Ugresic. Her mini-essays and cultural analysis about the new Europe and and life in exile set up the panorama of the new global culture. Whether she's writing about suitcases, stereotypes, or the dehumanization of capitalism run amok, Ugresic speaks with a casual directness that's both surprising and really fun to read. (Translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac.)

The Pets, by Bragi Olafsson, is a hilarious, claustrophobic farce of sorts that looks at the odd relationship between two old friends. When I interviewed Olafsson last month, he called the book a "chamber novel" as most of the action takes place in a small apartment...with the main character under the bed. (Funny stuff.) One of my favorite novels this year. (Translated by Janice Balfour.)

The Taker, by Rubem Fonseco. Wow. If this story collection (Fonseco's first to be translated into English) doesn't scare the heck out of you, you'll love it. As an example: In the title story, "The Taker," the narrator decides that the world owes him everything, and he makes it his mission in life to "take" (read: kill). These antiheroes' humanity emerges in unusual ways, and the constant anxiety of extreme class differences and the eerie urban landscapes around Rio de Janeiro make this an unforgettable read. (Translated by Clifford E. Landers.)

Chad Post, the editor responsible for bringing these works to the U.S., took time out of his very busy schedule to answer some of my questions:

Amazon.com: My first question is a bit personal. It seems like you're always off to New York or the Twin Cities or Frankfurt or other international destinations. And you're a prolific blogger. And you run a translation studies program. And a press. And you do interviews on TV. Are you tired?

Chad Post: One of my bad shopping habits is to buy the largest, tallest coffee mugs I can find . . . Honestly, it can be a bit exhausting, but a lot of these things--going to book fairs, visiting other countries--are extremely fun. And somewhat energizing. And, umm, I like to stay busy?

Amazon.com: How does it feel to have the first books out the door?

CP: It’s indescribable. It’s one thing when you’re at a press that’s been around for a while and you see a book through from start to finish, but having built the press from the ground up makes it so much more meaningful. I even had the printer overnight copies to me in D.C. since I wasn’t going to be there when the first book arrived . . .

Amazon.com: The book designs are really exciting. Who is responsible, and how did that come about?

CP: That’s thanks to our senior editor E.J. Van Lanen, his good friend Milan Bozic, and a meeting with Proa editions at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was at the Fair that E.J. and I decided we wanted to publish our books in the paper-over-board format. (The books are durable, and read like hardcovers, but sans book jacket, we’re able to keep the prices really low.) And Milan--who does design for HarperCollins--had the vision for this first series of titles. The books are meant to resemble each other, work on the p-o-b format, and bright enough to jump out at readers.

Amazon.com: I wonder if people see "works in translation from a university press" and think the books might be too serious or literary (read: boring). But, wow, that's definitely not the case with your books. Both the Ugresic and Ólafsson books are very funny, and they all have a renegade sensibility. What are some of your strategies for getting readers excited about other fantastic authors they don't know?

CP: I totally know where you’re coming from with the “boring” comment. I feel like a few university presses describe the translations they publish in such a way that it seems like the books are going to be a lot of work to read. And it doesn’t help that most people--reviewers, bookstores, other publishers--have a built-in idea that “international literature doesn’t sell.” This really isn’t true. Readers are interested in books from other countries--the bigger problem is making them aware of these titles at a time when book review sections are closing down, and the industry is running off of a “best-seller” loaded model in which everyone is reading the same twelve books at any point in time. That said, we’ve had tremendous success marketing our books online, not just to bloggers but to actual readers as well. We still try and get reviews in the typical media outlets (newspapers, magazines, and radio), but I’ve been finding that our more direct approaches are really paying off. It helps that our books are fun and exciting to read . . .

Amazon.com: What's your process for identifying and choosing books for publication?

CP: We have an editorial committee that helps make final decisions, but most of the upfront work is done by me and E.J. We go to Frankfurt, we read all the catalogs and samples, we’re in touch with translators about getting samples, etc. When we find a book we absolutely love and want to share with everyone, we present it to our committee. Although this might sound systematic, it’s really a bit more chaotic and riddled with coincidences . . .

Amazon.com: How do you find your translators (or do they find you)?

CP: It really depends. For books we find and want to get translated (like Jorge Volpi’s Season of Ash which comes out next fall), we contact our network of translators and find the right person for the job. But a lot of books come along with a translator, such as Janice Balfour with Bragi Olafsson’s The Pets. She had already been working on this (she had actually finished it) when we signed the book on. It’s usually easier that way—translators already invested in a project tend to do wonderful translations. Not that others don’t, but it’s just cool to find someone passionate about the same book you are and then have the chance to work with them on presenting it to English readers. This is one of those energizing activities that keep me awake . . .

Amazon.com: You do a great job on your blog pointing out instances in the U.S. mainstream press of U.S.-centeredness. At what point in your career did you start to become attuned to this? Does it make you crazy, or give you fuel for your cause?

CP: I’m not entirely sure when this started, although doing publicity for Dalkey’s books in translation was a striking first-hand experience in how difficult it can be to get attention for international writers. (Not that it’s that much easier for literature written by Americans.) When I was working in bookstores, I became obsessed with foreign fiction, Latin American fiction in particular. It bugged me then as it bugs me now, how difficult it is to find out about contemporary writers from Chile or Argentina or Peru or wherever. Of course, once you do find out about someone who sounds fascinating, his/her books probably aren’t available in translation . . . Thankfully I'm now in a position where I can help do something about that. On the whole I think most review sources do what they can. They’re inevitably U.S.-centric--they have to cater to their readers to some degree, and they believe their readers want to hear about American writers--but nowadays, as compared to six years ago, they’re aware of international fiction and the lack of coverage given to it. At least there’s a dialogue and general appreciation.

Amazon.com: I'm sure there are some authors (Bolaño, Sebald, Houellebecq) that are fairly widely read in the U.S. (at least as much as other "literary" fiction), but it seems like we do miss out on a lot of great literature. Who should we be reading? Who are you reading?

CP: One of the things about publishing is that you’re almost always limited to books you’re about to publish or are thinking about publishing. So I’ve been proofing—and greatly enjoying—The Conqueror by Jan Kjaerstad, which we’re bringing out in February. We’re getting the translation of Kjaerstad’s next book (The Discoverer) later this week, which should be fantastic.

Outside of OL books though, I’m a huge fan of Antonio Lobo Antunes, and his new book, What Can I Do When Everything’s on Fire?, is remarkably good. A more obscure book that’s just coming out and is totally worth reading is Metropole by Ference Karinthy. It’s about a linguist who, on his way to a conference, falls asleep and wakes up in a country where he can’t understand the language . . .

I’m really looking forward to reading Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra (part of Melville House’s “Art of the Contemporary Novella” series) and Eros by Helmut Krausser, and the new translation of The City and the Mountains by Eca de Queiros. And yes, I did finish Bolano’s 2666, and it is an absolute masterpiece.

Amazon.com: Do you see much interest in works in translation among book bloggers? Have non-professional bloggers requested your ARCs?

CP: Bloggers are voracious readers, and are open to all sorts of books, including translations from unknown foreign authors. This culture runs completely counter to all the dire “death of reading” reports that have been coming out. I don’t doubt that the average person only reads a handful of books a year, but thanks to the internet, those of us who are big readers can now connect, share recommendations, and spread the word to large audiences about great works of literature. There have been a few non-professional bloggers asking us for books, and I’m more than happy to send along copies. What’s most important to me is getting books into the hands of people who will read and think about them. Even a negative review from a blogger is more satisfying than sending off copies to newspapers or magazines and never hearing anything. There’s some sort of reviewer cost-value relationship equation in there somewhere  . . .

Amazon.com: In your experience, what are the great things and not so great things about working for a small press?

CP: The absolute best thing is the fact that you can be involved in every aspect of the publishing business. No one is stuck in the “direct marketing” department at a small press—you’re privy to all the interworkings, which provides small press people with a more comprehensive view of publishing than most people working at a commercial house. The worst thing? You never have enough money to do all that you could do. Most small presses are financially under-capitalized, as even as a nonprofit capable of receiving grants and individual donations (Open Letter is in this situation), you still have a tough time breaking even. We, as a field, are still creating a donation culture for nonprofit literary presses. A lot of people donate to nonprofit theaters and galleries, but have no idea that publishing houses such as ours, or Archipelago, or Graywolf, need support as well.

Amazon.com: Thank you for your passion and good work--I feel like U.S. readers (myself included) are very lucky that you're out there bringing great stories to us that we would totally miss otherwise. And thanks for your time.

CP: Thanks for getting in touch. I love your blog and I really enjoyed talking with you.

--Heidi

In this edition of YA Wednesday, we are awash and amok with anticipation (not really, just a little eager to know how it all turns out).

National Book Awards in just a few hours...

Winners of the National Book Awards will be announced on the National Book Foundation website at 9:30 p.m. EST--tonight!

I made it through two of the nominated books for young readers this week. They're both super engaging reads with unforgettable protags, and they couldn't be more different. 

It's a bit of a stretch to talk about Chains, officially a "middle reader" (ages 9-12), in YA Wednesday. But, considering that Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak sort of revolutionized YA fiction nearly 10 years ago, it seems appropriate.

Isabel and her sister Ruth are living on a farm in Rhode Island when their mistress, who stipulated in her will that they would be freed, passes away. Instead they are sold to a Loyalist couple and moved to New York City right around the time of the Revolutionary War battles that nearly destroyed the city. Isabel is resourceful and she works with anyone--revolutionary or British--who might be able to help her secure her freedom. LHA opens each chapter with a quote from an original letter, journal, or historical document, all of which she used to create a realistic picture of the New York City of 1776. Chains is a meditation on freedom in a city that was trying to be free, and yet left 20 percent of its citizens enslaved. Isabel suffers some unbelievable setbacks (it's a book about slavery, after all), but her spirit remains intact, and her story is thrilling.

The Spectacular Now, Tim Tharp's novel about a partying teen just outside Oklahoma City, is also a meditation on freedom--in a very different sense. Sutter, a fun-loving sweet-talker, lives totally in the now, and is the life of every party. In his own words, he "embraces the weird." He falls off two-story houses, parks his car on strangers' lawns, even burns up his brother-in-law's $1200 suit. These are all accidents, which all happen after a bit of whiskey and 7UP, and they don't seem to affect his positive outlook much. While Sutter becomes tiresome to everyone around him, he remains a completely charming narrator throughout. He's driven to have a good time, but he's also driven to help his friends find love or confidence or whatever it is they need. Of course, there's a bit of sadness underlying his misadventures, but the book never goes into rehab territory.  It's more about a teen on the cusp of adulthood, trying to figure out the kind of adult he wants to be.

(The other contenders: The Underneath, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and What I Saw and How I Lied.)

Quick Twilight links...

You didn't think I'd leave out Bella and Edward with their big screen debut just two days away, did you?

EW.com's Popwatch blog talks about the "shrieking masses" at the November 17 L.A. premier.

AICN reader "Saffron Starlet" posts a very detailed early review of the Twilight movie.

Salon interviews director Catherine Hardwicke. (Responding to the question: Will there be a sequel? "I haven't gone out and bought a new Prius quite yet.")

Next week I'm taking a break at Granny's house. Back on the 3rd. Happy Twilight weekend!--Heidi

Choosing the Outdoors & Nature list is one of my favorite tasks of the year (see autobiographical note about liking books about bears)--and it's especially good for me that no other editor here likes sleeping in the woods, so no one else wants to do it. As the category goes, this list is an unruly hodgepodge of natural history and outdoor adventure, and my top pick follows form: Steven Rinella's American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon will please Krakauer addicts (Krak-heads?) as well as readers of singular species-bios such as Cod (to further abuse an obvious analogy). With a spare style appropriate to the rigors of the Alaskan wilderness (where much of the action occurs), Rinella wraps the narrative of his own buffalo hunt around the story of bison bison in North America, from its journey across the Bering land bridge and encounters with Native Americans to its near extinction and unlikely recovery. Engrossing, informative, and funny, American Buffalo may be coming late in the year (it's available December 2), but it was worth the wait, and certainly deserving of the top slot.

A couple of honorable mentions. As usual--especially since I am strictly limited to 10 titles by the unforgiving laws of list-making--a couple of titles missed the list, either through the arduous process of elimination or simple memory lapse. Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mt. Everest is Lincoln Hall's account of his near-fatal attempt at the world's tallest mountain--he summited successfully, but was left for dead overnight on the North Ridge when he succumbed to altitude sickness and became unresponsive, even to jabs in the eye. The book veers into metaphysical aspects of his crisis more than I cared for, but Hall's description of the minutiae of the route is pure dexamethasone to the armchair alpinist. And of The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature, our own Lauren Nemroff says, "At first glance, a book of essays on this enormously popular pastime might appear to be as boring as a pigeon loitering on a sidewalk. But rest assured, Rosen's account of birdwatching today and throughout U.S. history is as exciting and moving as a soaring bald eagle."

Without further ado, the full list:

1. American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, Steven Rinella
2. Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska, Seth Kantner
3. Forget Me Not: A Memoir, Jennifer Lowe-Anker
4. Fool's Paradise, John Gierach
5. Egg & Nest, Rosamond Purcell
6. The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird, Bruce Barcott
7. Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes, Maurice Isserman
8. Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl, Stacey O'Brien
9. Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, Bill Schutt
10. The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery, Howard Wilshire

And the bestsellers:            

1. Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming, Fred Krupp
2. Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl, Stacey O'Brien
3. The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About--Because They Helped Cause Them, Iain Murray
4. The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Eastern and Central North America, Donald Kroodsma
5. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Brian Fagan
6. The Life of the Skies, Jonathan Rosen
7. High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, Michael Kodas
8. Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, Mark Lynas
9. Fool's Paradise, John Gierach
10. Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Ted Floyd

See more in the Best of 2008 Store.

--Jon

As a reviewer and as a reader, every few weeks I receive stuff that I can only call "cool"--books that don't fit into any particular category but that I just love to death. So here's a selection of books you might not have heard about...but that you should buy ASAP. Especially with the holidays right around the corner. All of them make great gifts.

Biology: Life As We Know It by Dan Green is literally a biology book for kids, with a distinctly graphic novel look to it. But it's so utterly delightful for all ages that I'm recommending it to all of my friends. It's the kind of book where you have a little smile on your face the whole time you're reading it. Here's the book with its equally delightful friend Physics: The Matter Matters.

Now, those two books you can rationalize as necessary to some extent. These next two...not so much.

The first is Marion Bataille's ABC3D--a pop-up book of the alphabet, gorgeously designed. Here you see this fancy book posing with its black sheep punk rock cousin (more on that soon), as well as a couple of interior shots. Definitely art in book form...

...that alphabet book's cousin, Punk Rock Etiquette by Travis Nichols, which combines comics and text to provide the ultimate how-to guide, might just be the funniest book I've read all year. Everything from forming a band to merch is covered by this insightful and hilarious volume.

So there you have it--cool stuff you don't need and might not have known about, but now you want want want want want...

One of the great pleasures of my year was the arrival on the doorstep of Joan Aiken's The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories, from the new Big Mouth House (the children's imprint of the brilliant Small Beer Press). The volume collects all 24 classic Armitage stories, four of which are published here for the first time. A charming mix of magic and the hilariously mundane, these stories chronicle the eccentric and wonderfully original adventures of a special family. Ghosts, goblins, and much more make an appearance. It's lovely and sometimes serious stuff--the kind of work that really deserves the "will thrill and delight readers young and old" tag.

The book also includes such lovely flourishes as wonderful illustrations by English comics artist Andi Watson, an introduction by bestselling author Garth Nix, and another introduction by Aiken's daughter, Lizza Aiken. Aiken's introduction provides a measured and information-packed look at the creation and publication of the stories.

I interviewed Lizza Aiken recently via email about the book, and her involvement in it...

Amazon.com: What in your opinion is the appeal of the Armitage Family stories?
Lizza Aiken: With these stories Joan Aiken found the perfect framework for gently making fun of family life, and particularly of the fallibility of parents and the prevailing social order, and shows how children see right through all the arbitrary rules and learn to deal with life in their own way--if necessary by magic. I’m sure she would acknowledge a debt to E.Nesbitt, whose gleeful wickedness Joan greatly admired, and who wrote some wonderfully satirical stories for children about the horrors of Edwardian family life--books she read in her own childhood. The Armitage stories cover a span of about fifty years and embrace all the craziness of twentieth century consumerism from Breakfast Briks to automatic home help in the form of the robotic Helots, and make the absolute most of everything that can possibly go wrong, which of course embarrasses the grown ups and delights the children.

Amazon.com: I'm curious if you'd care to share a more personal anecdote or two relevant to the stories and yourself in relation to them?
Lizza Aiken: Joan began writing the Armitage stories in her teens, as a gently parody of her own family and the village where she grew up, and which I knew when I was a child as my Grandparents still lived there. It was quite possible to believe that some of the old ladies were witches, as the real and made up elements of the stories were often inextricably mixed for me. A lady Gardener did come to my Grandmother’s house and try to buy the Quince tree, and I vividly remember dutifully ploughing through boxes of dreary breakfast cereal so I could get to cut out the models on the back of the packet.

Amazon.com: How involved were you in the creation of this edition?
Lizza Aiken: I have been trying to make it happen right from the start--it was one of the last projects my mother had planned before she died. She had come to the end of the Wolves series, and resolved the problems of Dido and Simon so that readers would not be left wondering how their story worked out. The story of The Serial Garden had always haunted her, and many of her readers too, and I think she felt a real duty to try and resolve the terrible sadness of its ending. It was her idea to use the name of this story for this collection, and I understand that this was why she chose it. She had written a couple more stories about its hero, Mr Johansen and his lost Princess, and gave them the possibility of a happy ending, but perhaps was still worried that she had been unduly harsh to Mrs Armitage, whose brisk spring cleaning had caused an unwitting tragedy. Mrs Armitage was in many ways a portrait of Joan’s mother, and it is she who is really redeemed in a later story, Milo’s New Word and remembered as the patient and loving mother she really was.

Amazon.com: Have you had a chance to re-read the stories recently? And if so, did anything surprise you about them, reading them now?
Lizza Aiken: Y