100BestWIT discussion

What are you currently reading?

I'm currently having some impulse control problems, so I seem to keep on starting new books without finishing the ones I'm already reading. I've started All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg and I'm absolutely loving her writing style! It's one of those books I keep on reading late into the night thinking 'only one more chapter...'

I'm also halfway through The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, but I find it best to read that one in small portions because the lives of the women of the family make me feel rather depressed (the parts about the booktrade in Afghanistan are fascinating, though).

And I'm stuck a 100 pages before the end of Ladivine by Marie NDiaye, which I find a very intriguing book, but I'm not sure I quite like it...

What are you reading Michael?

Just finished Optic Nerve and about to start The Slynx. Also have the audiobook of The Gravity of Love on the go.

Michael wrote: "Just finished Optic Nerve and about to start The Slynx. Also have the audiobook of The Gravity of Love on the go."
Looking forward to The Slynx. Tolstaya has become a favorite of mine :)

Just finished New Islands: And Other Stories, and hoping to fit in one more title for WITmonth (of course, it never truly ends!) Possibly Space Invaders...

The Slynx is one of my absolute faves. I've been in the middle of The Vegetarian for a while, and I'll probably start Go, Went, Gone soon, group read or no.

I just finished Seeing Red by Lina Meruane a few hours ago and am hoping to fit in Death In Spring by Mercè Rodoreda in the next two days. Also have The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang on audiobook so may listen to it on our long drive tomorrow. It is less than three hours long :)

Charlotte wrote: "I just finished Seeing Red by Lina Meruane a few hours ago and am hoping to fit in Death In Spring by Mercè Rodoreda in the next two days. Also have The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwan..."

I highly recommend Hen and hope you enjoy it. I doubt it will take you more than ninety minutes but odds are you’ll think about Scout for some time. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

I’m reading The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre and Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn. Enjoying both.

I've started Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb.

I started reading Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer in August for WIT month which I'm carrying over into September, it is a fictionalized account of British naturalist Len Howard.

I started View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wisława Szymborska (trans. Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh). I’m not a big poetry reader in general (I’m just not sure what to pick up) but I’m excited to give this one a try.

I’m also reading How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić.

Agnese wrote: "I’m also reading How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić."

I've got that one on my shelves as well. I loved his Before the Feast, so I'm curious to read this one. I'm interested to hear what you think of it!

I've just finished Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård. Very strong and can be read in a single sitting!

Charlotte wrote: "I just finished Seeing Red by Lina Meruane a few hours ago and am hoping to fit in Death In Spring by Mercè Rodoreda in the next two days. Also have The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwan..."

I've been hoping to come across that Rodoreda for ages, and its showing up on the 100WIT makes my need even more urgent. I'll have to check out my library stock and see whether it'll be worth nominating for a read.

Agnese wrote: "I started View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wisława Szymborska (trans. Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh). I’m not a big poetry reader in general (I’m just not sure what t..."

I liked that Szymborska collection enough to be open to picking up other works of hers should I come across them. I will admit, though, that the Nobel is a great motivator.

I've bought, started and immediately finished Translation as Transhumance by Mireille Gansel (no. 96 on the list) today. What a phenomenal book! I love how she writes about her journeys through language and the way different pathways into language and meaning is reflected in the poetry she translates.

I read Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima in September as well, another one on the list and one I really enjoyed. It's a bit of a strange one - kind of quiet and restrained but also honest and melancholic - portrayal of a mother trying to bring up her child on her own shortly after separating from her husband.

Oh, I loved Territory of Light. I also love my copy of Szymborska's poetry. I find with poetry, it does me no service to read it all in a row. It's more like a box of rich chocolates - one at a time works best for me. I'm looking forward to Translation as Transhumance because I'm very interested in the use of language across cultures, individual words, etc. But I've just started, thanks to June, Welcome to America. I'm hoping that later tonight I'll have the time to just read it straight through.

I've come across a really interesting interview with Jhumpa Lahiri today (here on lithub). She has a lot of interesting things to say on literature in translation, reading more internationally and really diving into one the literature of one country.

The occasion for the interview is that she edited The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, which contains 40 short stories by 20th century authors. Unfortunately, even though the interview made a lot of her focus on women writers, the ratio of women is rather low (I only count 11 out of 40). I wonder why that is... (Though my experience in Italian (Roman) bookshop is, that the shelf containing Italian literature in English translation holds either 1 book by Elena Ferrante or 0 female authors...)

Ella wrote: "I'm looking forward to Translation as Transhumance because I'm very interested in the use of language across cultures, individual words, etc."

ooh I'm hoping it's going to make it as the book for November. I'd love to reread and discuss it with this group! And if you're interested in language, can I recommend Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages, which contains 20 interesting essays on all different aspects of language told through the 20 most spoken languages in the world.

I'm not reading anything applicable at the moment (Queer History Month focus doesn't unfortunately coincide much with WiT concerning the books that I have on hand), but I picked up such a good spread of WiT at my regular book sale that I had to show them off:

Territory of Light - Yūko Tsushima (I believe this is a 100 WiT to boot)
You Are Not Like Other Mothers - Angelika Schrobsdorff
I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops - Hanan Al-Shaykh (I've been looking for this one for a while, so very excited about it)
My Heart Hemmed In - Marie NDiaye (All My Friends refuses to show up, so I'm making do with another)
Valentine - Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin (I liked Indiana enough that I might as well take a chance on one of her other works with a slightly higher, if still dismal, average rating)

Anyone familiar with any of these?

Awesome catch of books. I wished my library was as read!!!

This is why I keep lobbying for my library to have a regular sale instead of sending everything to Better World Books (but to be fair, I love Better World Books for all the great finds to be had.)

I'm currently reading a book by Portugese author Dulce Maria Cardoso: a Dutch translation of O Chão dos Pardais. I've never heard of this author before, but I'm really enjoying this book so far. It revolves around a family where everybody has the talent to mess up their life a little bit more than it already was. I'm rooting for the closeted daughter has a crush on the maid.

Reading her wikipedia page, Cardoso seems to be a high profile writer in Portugal and has won a lot of prizes. Anybody read other books by her? Which ones do you recommend?

Sanne wrote: "I'm currently reading a book by Portugese author Dulce Maria Cardoso: a Dutch translation of O Chão dos Pardais. I've never heard of this author before, but I'm rea..."
I have her book THE RETURN on my shelf, but have no read it yet. I actually picked it up in Lisbon.

Hello all,
Further to my comment under the April 2020 selection where I proposed #19 The Mussel Feast. Regardless of when Best100WIT reads it, I thought perhaps other members might be interested in a current Translated Fiction Online Book Club (TFOBC) where "The Mussel Feast" will be discussed this Thurs. March 26, 2020 at 8:00pm GMT.

The instructions to sign up for the TFOBC are at https://mailchi.mp/peirenepress/annou... (i.e. You need Zoom to view the club online)

Given the short time frame before Thurs. March 26. eBooks of "The Mussel Feast" are likely the best option if you do not already have a copy. You can obtain via Peirene (offers a 30% discount using code "bookclub"), Kobo or Amazon Kindle.

Only "The Mussel Feast" from Best100WIT is currently in the TFOBC schedule, but there are 3 other WIT scheduled that may be of interest, these are:

Week 2 (April 2nd): Tilted Axis Press present Where The Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/books...

Week 5 (April 23rd): Comma Press present Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (session led by translator) https://commapress.co.uk/books/thirte...

Week 6 (April 30th): Istros Books present Singer in the Night by Olja Savičević, translated from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth http://istrosbooks.com/products/books...