M.A.Orthofer = the Complete Review + the Literary Saloon — and the novel, 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑧 (2024)
Joined March 2009
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Yes, the fad is still going oh-so strong: "for American publishers, every day seems worth celebrating as Japanese cat day" nypost.com/2026/10/25/lifest…
John Banville profile @Independent_ie and they apparently had a strict word-count; still, I like how they stuff a few more bits from the exchange in at the end. independent.ie/irish-news/se… [€]
"Their bite-size format appeals to busy studio executives facing mountains of scripts. Buying unpublished stories also allows producers to avoid the hassle of optioning novels, whose fans often expect a faithful adaptation." nytimes.com/2026/10/24/books… Good for the writers, but .....
New review: Robert Grudin's 1992 novel of academia and Theory, "Book" complete-review.com/reviews/…
Sad to hear that Murakami Ryū (the 'other Murakami') has passed away mainichi.jp/english/articles… (Seven of his novels are under review at the CR.)
Michael Orthofer retweeted
these days, one can get real treasures from libraries for $0, since they have to weed out tons of books. the best part about working at a uni library is: u're always first in line. so i was able to haul the 33-volume "Deutsches Wörterbuch" by the brothers grimm. it's fantastic.
Winner of this year's Nordic Council Literature Prize — the biggest Scandinavian-book prize — originally published in both Sámi (as 'Láŋtdievvá') & Norwegian (as 'Planterhaug', in version where "the author moves between Tornedalen Sámi, Nynorsk, & Bokmål") norden.org/en/nominee/winner…
Each Scandinavian country/area gets to nominate one or two books for the prize; this year: "the juries for both Norway and the Sami language area have independently nominated the same book, published in parallel in both Norwegian and Torne Sami".
The Bulgarians (as well as the Germans, Italians, and Swedes) have apparently already snapped up foreign rights — so what are you US/UK publishers waiting for ? norla.no/en/books/1652-backw…
Now (French) authors have a prize for their AI-(co-)written work, the new prix Pascal de Littérature IA ! prixpascal.fr/index.html (Always great to see a prize with its own manifesto ! prixpascal.fr/manifeste.html.) Humans still in the loop, however, also in the judging.
As usual, I must be missing something (everything ?). Reading-world at large ≠ world of my (admittedly limited) reading experience. elle.com/culture/books/a7376…
New review: Georges Simenon's 𝑇𝑒𝑑𝑑𝑦 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑟 complete-review.com/reviews/… (It's apparently being re-issued in the US 8/2027, though not in a new translation.)
This is one of Simenon's 'romans durs', which is also what Picador is going with us.macmillan.com/books/97812… , but I think the Germans were onto something calling these 'Psychos'. Here the advert for more of them in the back of my copy:
Book acquisition: yes, yes, I know: I have at least 40 volumes by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, but hear me out: collected essays, so there must be some strays that have eluded me; neat jacket-pocket-fitting size (1000 pages !); €2; and — his poems ! (There are like 6 poems 🙂 ..... )
(Also: basically all my Dürrenmatt volumes are in storage, and will be a while longer. Of course, now I am on the lookout for the one big chunk I am missing: 1296 pages of him in conversation diogenes.ch/leser/titel/frie….)
