The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

These can be new releases, or older titles.

I discovered Oksana Zabuzhko thanks to Lascosas on the old forum who had the highest praise for The Museum of Abandoned Secrets. Finally got round to reading Zabuzhko myself, albeit so far only her short novel Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, which was excellent.

And whilst this might not tally completely with my star ratings, Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue is growing more impressive in memory a few weeks after I finished it.

Cassidy wrote: "As for me, I'm almost done with Don Quixote and I'm loving it way more than I expected. I had no idea a 400-year-old book would make me laugh out loud as much as it has. ."

Welcome - and yes it is a wonderful novel, and Edith Grossman's recentish translation was for me an excuse to re-read it.

If you want a 250 year old book that is even funnier I'd recommend The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

On best book in 2016: for me the wonderful Pond by Claire Louise Bennett. If that doesn't do well in award season there is no justice.

Thanks for reminding me that it's about time for me to read the rest of Don Quixote, Cassidy, and thanks Paul for recommending Pond which wasn't on my radar yet at all. I'm looking forward to reading this thread as it grows.

Antonomasia, I enjoyed reading Sudden Death quite a bit, too, especially because even the most ridiculous parts were told so convincingly that I found myself looking stuff up online to see if it was true.

But my favorite book read this year is Laurus by Evgenij Vodolazkin.

Glad to hear of someone else who enjoyed Laurus. I'm still incredulous it wasn't on either the Booker International or BTBA longlists.

Best reads of '16 so far...

1. The pride of place goes to Leg Over Leg: Volume One. Written around mid-19th century, it is right up there along with Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy. In fact, having read the first book of Gargantua and Pantagruel, it's better to call it Rabelaisian in its linguistic inventiveness, scriptural satire and bawdy humour, and in the vast amount of learning and erudition both men display. I have other volumes, will resume shortly.

2. Raduan Nassar's A Cup of Rage surprised me. It comes with erotica tag but there's much more to it than that; it leaves the reader with a sketch of the dynamics of an uneven romantic relationship so that beyond the last page the rageful debate carries on in your head. Its 65-something pages have the weight of a full-length novel. I can also see that like Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel, it will be pulverized for reasons other than literary merit.

3. Tales of Galicia by Andrzej Stasiuk. I have read half the stories so far. Setting: rural Poland. The end of Communism and the advent of the new era takes on religious-mythical proportions in (some) these short stories, as if the foundations of the world are being laid anew! A mixture of hope and doom trails like deadweight at the heels of those who're passing through the times, but the only way to deal with it is to have a disposition that doesn't even register the "momentous change" occurring all around. They just go on with their lives as before. It is as though the narrators(s) is almost laughing at the expense of the colourful rhetoric of 'freedom and democracy' and of 'A New Beginning' that took over Eastern Europe in the wake of Soviet downfall. That's my interpretation, the stories themselves don't take a political stand. Likewise there is no love lost for Communism, "that great dispenser of greyness." The writing is highly symbolic, deeply suggestive, but above all rich in beautiful images and metaphors. Thanks to Anto for bringing it to my notice.

4. Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories. My view of Giovanni Verga is that he's a first grade prose stylist in the 19th century realism who ought to be read more widely. Preface says D.H. Lawrence was a big fan and translated him too. This Penguin edition combines two collections (Viva dei campi & Novelle rusticane). They are perfect examples of the form, especially in stories where the narrative stretches into years. Excellent pieces.

5. Life and Times of Michael K. by J.M. Coetzee. One word. Devastating.

*Notes down _Laurus_*

Note to self: stop procrastinating and treat these notes as short reviews to write the expanded ones.

These would do perfectly well as shorter reviews in themselves!

Glad to see someone else liked A Cup of Rage - it's not been the most popular on here. Penguin published another equally short book by Nassar at the same time, Ancient Tillage, although maybe that's less easy to find than the one from the Booker list.
&Good to hear Tales from Galicia is working out okay too.

Antonomasia wrote: "Glad to hear of someone else who enjoyed Laurus. I'm still incredulous it wasn't on either the Booker International or BTBA longlists."

Me too--it was easily better to me than any of the Booker International or BTBA nominated books (some of which I liked quite a lot, but not as much as Laurus). I wonder if it has been misunderstood as overtly religious? As a niche book that way?

It's kind of strange to call it "overtly" religious, when religion is so central, but somehow it wasn't a religious book to me because the faith of the characters was presented as just a part of life, and as the way everyone thought at the time, as natural as the seasons, and the plagues, and all the other things that made up this very vivid world.

it wasn't a religious book to me because the faith of the characters was presented as just a part of life, and as the way everyone thought at the time, as natural as the seasons, and the plagues, and all the other things that made up this very vivid world.
Exactly. I'd love to give it to medieval historians who wouldn't normally bother with historical fiction; the atmosphere feels as right as in any textbook that tries to describe the worldview of the times. Even the postmodern bits fit in with the mystical/millenarian aspect.

Jibran wrote: "Best reads of '16 so far...

1. The pride of place goes to Leg Over Leg: Volume One. Written around mid-19th century, it is right up there along with Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy..."

The more I hear about Leg Over Leg, the more intrigued I am.

Nicole wrote: "Jibran wrote: "Best reads of '16 so far...

1. The pride of place goes to Leg Over Leg: Volume One. Written around mid-19th century, it is right up there along with Don Quixote and ..."

Good news: the whole thing is now available in 2 paperbacks Look up.

Recommended for all the Pantagruelists out there!

Jibran wrote: "Nicole wrote: "Jibran wrote: "Best reads of '16 so far...

1. The pride of place goes to Leg Over Leg: Volume One. Written around mid-19th century, it is right up there along with D..."

I even found them earlier on a non-bezos site. :)

Of course, I still haven't read Tristram Shandy or re-read Don Quixote, either. Maybe I can quit my job....

Jibran wrote: "Good news: the whole thing is now available in 2 paperbacks Look up."

Thanks so much for posting this. I have had the Kindle versions of the individual volumes on my wishlist for a long time, but at almost $20 per volume, they were out of my range. With the combined volumes, I can get all 4 for about $20 total, a much more realistic price.

Deborah wrote: "Thanks so much for posting this. I have had the Kindle versions of the individual volumes on my wishlist for a long time, but at almost $20 per volume,"

Yes, the complete set was too highly priced for the general reader. Folks at LAL did well to issue affordable paperbacks/ebooks, as it puts them in more hands. They have other English-only editions which are expected to a have slightly bigger readership than the more obtuse titles. For example, the recently issued The Epistle of Forgiveness: Volumes One and Two, which is next on my wishlist. It looks like an early precursor to Dante with a good dose of satire. I have always loved al-Ma'arri's quatrains/rubaiyat, so this one should be reeeealllyyy interesting...

My top 5 out of the ones I've read so far this year (in order not to single one out, these are listed newest first:
The Green Road by Anne Enright
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck
The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

Currently reading The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall which may be up there if the ending doesn't let it down.

Laurus is on my to-read list

Hugh wrote: "My top 5 out of the ones I've read so far this year (in order not to single one out, these are listed newest first:"

Life after Life and The End of Days are interesting to read together given they came out almost the same month in English and the central concept is so similar. For me the latter rather overshadowed the former - although I thought A God in Ruins, Atkinson's sequel of sorts, was very strong.

Paul wrote: "Hugh wrote: "My top 5 out of the ones I've read so far this year (in order not to single one out, these are listed newest first:"

Life after Life and The End of Days are interesting to read togeth..."
I felt the way they used the one character multiple deaths device, and the styles and intentions of these too books were so different that neither detracts from the other. Life after Life is character driven, The End of Days is more about universal human experiences. I think The End of Days took longer to appear in Britain than it did in America - my copy was a new paperback edition.

One of my best books so far this year is actually a Booker winner: A Brief History of Seven Killings. The writing was staggeringly good, and most of the book saw me completely engrossed.

I'm currently making my way through two books that will probably be on my top ten list at the end of the year, and I have faith that the authors won't let me down:

George Eliot's Middlemarch: I'm halfway through Book Three (of eight), and it just keeps getting better.

Louise Erdrich's LaRose: I'm just toward the beginning of this one, but so far for me it's her best in years. I hope it keeps going that way!

Nicole wrote: "One of my best books so far this year is actually a Booker winner: A Brief History of Seven Killings. The writing was staggeringly good, and most of the book saw me completely engro..."> A good choice - I read that one in 2015 but it was on a par with the ones I mentioned, if a little relentless.

I want to add The True Deceiver to my best reads of the year. It masquerades as a straightforward story, and its inner workings are so deep. I wish I had written this book.

poingu wrote: "I want to add The True Deceiver to my best reads of the year. It masquerades as a straightforward story, and its inner workings are so deep. I wish I had written this book."
Sounds interesting. I was given The Summer Book years ago and loved that, but somehow never got round to reading more, another one for the to-read list.

The Kindly Ones was pretty well disdained when it got released here in the states, Anya. I never did read it, so I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

I remember some complaining about the translation, but if I remember correctly the major complaints were about the contents of the book. This sentiment, from The New York Times , and other like it popped up again and again:

The novel's gushing fan's, however, seem to have mistaken perversity for daring, pretension for ambition, an odious stunt for contrarian cleverness.

The Washington Post and The New Republic also panned it.

Of course, not all English-language papers were so offended. The Guardian said:

But The Kindly Ones also owes its success to its quality as a work of fiction. Notwithstanding the controversial subject matter, this is an extraordinarily powerful novel that leads the stunned reader through extremes of both realism and surrealism on an exhausting journey through some of the darkest recesses of European history.

Indeed, it seems the book was better received in the UK than in the US, with The Spectator and The Times giving it great marks.

My own desire to read it was never strong, but I lost all will after M.A. Orthofer gave it a C- on The Complete Review.

I very rarely abandon novels - indeed I would say something like once out of 200 books I read - but this was one. That quote "seem to have mistaken perversity for daring, pretension for ambition, an odious stunt for contrarian cleverness" sums it up perfectly for me.

But I'd reached that conclusion well before a fifth of the way through any clearly others have different views.

I can't rank them, but among my best reads so far this year are the following:

Before the Feast, by Saša Stanišić
The Subsidiary, by Matías Celedón
The Tsar of Love and Techno, by Anthony Marra

It's about half way through the year now, so it's a good time to go through the list of books I've read and recall my favorites. The list of books I've really, really liked would be large, so I'm choosing those that I think stuck with me the most.

Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt
At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and apricot cocktails with: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others by Sarah Bakewell
The Door by Magda Szabo
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

I read The Door earlier this year, too, Sara, and it would be in my list of favorites. I'd also add Jakob Wasserman's My Marriage, thinking about NYRB Classics. But my favorite read so far has been Middlemarch! I hadn't read it before, and oh boy did I love it.

Trevor wrote: "I read The Door earlier this year, too, Sara, and it would be in my list of favorites. I'd also add Jakob Wasserman's My Marriage, thinking about NYRB Classics. But my favorite read so far has been..."
Talking of The Door (which I read several years ago in the first UK paperback edition), I'd like to add Iza's Ballad to my best of the year list - in some ways it is just as powerful.

That is great to hear, Hugh. It will be coming out for us in the U.S. later this year, and I cannot wait!

I would choose Herejes by Leonardo Padura, one of Cuba's most celebrated authors. I ve' read the Greek translation though; you should expect an English translation in 2017 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I totally recommend this one.

I also liked A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, which recently won the Bram Stoker Award (yes, horror is my soft spot!).

I have 3 very different 5 star reads so far this year:

Fates and Furies - was great on audio
A Simple Soul
Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron

I also very much enjoyed A God in Ruins

If you haven't read Adam Haslett's Imagine Me Gone, which is on the National Book Award longlist, I highly recommend it.

You guys are killing me (in the best possible way!) - have just added a half dozen titles to my TBR pile just from reading this thread! Looking back over this year, it's been a terrific one for books for me with many more 5 star books than I'd thought. Here are my best of the best (and I just updated!):

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
Dear Mr. You
Pretend I'm Dead: A Novel
Why We Came to the City
Don't Let Him Know
Reasons to Stay Alive
JD: A Novel
In a Strange Room
Imagine Me Gone
A Place Called Winter
Symptoms of Being Human
Miss Jane
Don't Let Him Know
Transit
Oh! A mystery of mono no aware
Autumn


.... and almost EVERYTHING written by Deborah Levy, since I've been reading her entire backlist after loving Hot Milk

If I had to choose just one, it would have to be the Haslett.

At the moment a tie between The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride and Patience by Daniel Clowes.

And my complete list of best fiction read to date in 2016, some new, some older, some read for the first time, some reread, some novels, some short story collections. I start with Adam Haslett's Imagine Me Gone as my 2016 to date favorite, and then follow with an alphabetical list.
Adam Haslett, Imagine Me Gone
Nicola Barker, Darkmans
Jim Crace, Quarantine
Mavis Gallant, Varieties of Exile
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
Robert Seethaler, A Whole Life
Graham Swift, Mothering Sunday
Magda Szabo, The Door
John Williams, Stoner

Nice to hear a shout-out to Nicola Barker. I enjoyed The Cauliflower but it's not up there with her best.

I just discovered a new (to me) author whose very distinctive voice I love: The Mighty Currawongs, by Brian Doyle.

I've found some really enjoyable reads this year, but there are two novels which I couldn't give less than five stars.

1. Cloud Atlas: A masterpiece. While I was intimidated by the first part (and the second part briefly), this was mainly due to being thrown into genres I generally don't enjoy. But, as the novel progressed, I was amazed by the scope of this novel, and how well Mitchell was able to write through six different genres, all to convey a beautiful overall theme. I was incredibly surprised to hear it didn't win the Man Booker, but I'm currently reading The Line of Beauty, so hopefully I might figure out why soon.

2. Do Not Say We Have Nothing: Undoubtedly the Man Booker shortlister that stuck with me the most. It's similar to Cloud Atlas, with its major timeframe and ensemble all to convey a common theme. Over three generations, I thoroughly enjoyed all the characters and the plots accompanying each era (although the second generation's plot remains my favourite), and the lyrical beauty of this novel helped to elevate it. This is definitely the novel I'm rooting for to win the Man Booker this year, but I'll just have to wait and see!

Now that we are three quarters of the way through the year, I am finding it very difficult to narrow down my selection, but my current top dozen is:
The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
Staying On by Paul Scott
Laurus by Evgenij Vodolazkin
Human Love by Andreï Makine
Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabó
The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck

Hugh: always good to see Powers get a mention. I'm a big fan but haven't read as much as I'd've liked. I read the opening to The Time of Our Singing a while back and it scared me a little - man can write some - but I've got that one poised for the near future and finding it on your list there bumps it up mine...

And the Raj Quartet is something that has interested me for some time.

Hugh

As somebody who has been drawn to the excellent Mookse discussion forum as a consequence of my long standing interest in the Booker Prize nominees, it's good to see your best of the year list includes two of the 2016 crop.

I've felt that the 2016 Booker 13 have been somewhat unjustly criticised collectively, not least in comparison to other literary prize lists. I find all of these lists very stimulating and my interest in Goldsmiths and US National Book awards has also been ignited by the many discussion threads here.

The Raj Quartet and Staying On are also great favourites of mine, and books whose TV/Film adaptations, in my opinion, did justice to the original written stories.

Thanks Lee and Jonathan. I do think the best two or three on the Booker shortlist hold up pretty well, and the shortlist often contains aberrations. I echo Jonathan's positive comments on the discussion threads here - it is wonderful to be able to read the thoughts of so many well informed readers. I hope to get round to reading the Raj Quartet one day...

I've read Raj Quartet twice... it is definitely one of my favs of all time - well worth the investment and it reads amazingly quickly for such a long work.

With only two months left in the year, I reviewed my 29 five-star ratings for 2016. I first removed the non-fiction, the thrillers, and the sci fi and then applied my test for "best" -- do I still remember what the book was about? Finally, I thought about those left and identified seven that are ones I would be most likely to reread.
1. In the Land of Armadillos: Stories by Helen Maryles Shankman (I'm surprised by how few ratings this book of short stories has),
2. News of the World by Paulette Jiles,
3. All the Living by C.E. Morgan (which was a reread this year and I'm still likely to reread it),
4. Laurus by Evgenij Vodolazkin (a translation from Russian that I bought because the cover was so compelling),
5. Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell,
6. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, and
7. Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt.

And because Halloween is just a few nights away, I will give a shout out for The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, not because I ever intend to reread it, but because it is so creepy. I don't want to reread it but I doubt I'll ever forget it.

I picked up Laurus form the library the other day - now I'm even more excited to start it :-)

Not a list of my personal 'best books read this year' - but this seems to be a good thread on which to share this.
The 'best of the year' lists are starting to come out now and I am always interested to see what the critics rate as their top books. Below is a link to the 100 Notable Books of 2016 from the NY Times (a list I always enjoy and one that should be narrowed down to their 10 best shortly.) Hoping this interests people and that they may share other 'best of' lists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/boo...

The novel I enjoyed the most and also thought was well-written was All That Man Is.

And I'll add Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers and Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea to my earlier list. Rereading The Sea, The Sea totally changed my earlier feelings about it.

Due to having a madly busy year I've read comparatively little this year, but the stand out novels have been My Name Is Lucy Barton and Stan Barstow's A Kind of Loving. I have managed to read my usual number of short story collections and there are a few that have left a lasting impression:

Gods and Angels by David Park
The Pier Falls: And Other Stories by Mark Haddon (a surprise as the only novel I'd read of his was a bit ho-hum)
The Dream Life of Astronauts: Stories by Patrick Ryan
Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge
Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
Is This The Way You Said? by Adam Thorpe
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

I've also listened to quite a few audiobooks this year, which is something I'd never done before. It started out as a way of "reading" some kids' books I had to get through for a job, but I found I really enjoyed listening to a story whilst I am painting, but that it needed to be something I could follow without much concentration. As a result I've (quite unexpectedly!) become a fan of Hercule Poirot, particularly enjoying Death on the Nile, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Evil Under the Sun, and I loved Michael Morpurgo's Alone on a Wide Wide Sea narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith and Emilia Fox.