NYRB Publishing

I've got a modern library edition somewhere that (I think) used to be cheap and findable second-hand, but it's £30+ on abe now.

Interesting article on Florio and Shakespeare.

If Florio was indeed involved in the Folio, a number of other passages may well be his work. It is well known that Gonzalo's utopian vision in The Tempest is lifted from Florio's translation of Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals". The standard view has been that this represents Shakespeare's borrowing from Montaigne; the alternative is that it might represent Florio borrowing from himself.

Which somewhat weakens the claim in the re-issue as Shakespeare's Montaigne.

In all, the OED ascribes 1,224 first usages to Florio – words such as "judicious", "management" and "transcription", but also "masturbation" and "fucker". In this, he is matched only by Chaucer and Shakespeare.

truly our god

From recently published NYRB Jessica Mitford collection: "The Best of Frenemies"---JM may have invented the term, way before Sex In The City:
http://nyrb.typepad.com/classics/2010/10/making-frenemies-with-jessica-mitford.html

Heard this morning that NYRB is republishing The Go-Between and Eustace and Hilda, with the former being "one of the best novels of the 20th Century." I've never read either; how are they?

You've gotta read The Go-Between, don. Own the NYRB Eustace and Hilda, but only read the first few chapters, which were grebt. If you want to start a reading group...

Thanks! I would, but since my library doesn't have any Hartley, and I don't have much of a book budget currently, will take a while (though I may ask librarian to order those).

Go-Between is ace. Apparently Hartley misunderstood his own book, though--without spoilering the plot, he thought the prejudices of all the non-central characters were perfectly correct
Is E&H the first book only, or the whole trilogy? Book 1 is good, haven't tackled the rest

Trilogy

Talk sounds intriguing:

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/classics/products/talk/?variant=1094931493

there's an excerpt from it here: http://lithub.com/talk/

yeah i really wanna read this

Does anyone what happened to Ginzburg's "A Family Lexicon"?

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/natalia-ginzburg/

They are building a healthy stable in Spanish lit titles. Want to get hold of Ocampo. Arlt and Di Benedetto forthcoming

Wanna check this! http://www.nyrb.com/products/the-woman-who-borrowed-memories/?variant=1094932805

Oh wow---NYRB Classics Book Club. I might do this. Have to think about it:
https://subscribe.nybooks.info/ecom/NYB/app/live/subscriptions?org=NYB&publ=BC&key_code=EVAXWWW&type=S&gift_key=GVAXWWW

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/the-white-stones?variant=6572997249

^ wow

Also love the idea of the Calligrams series. Need to get around Chinese lit and poetry.

I stumbled upon this last year while in Mexico, I'd never heard of her and only read it because I was there but it turned out to be one of my favourite pieces of travel writing:

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/a-visit-to-don-otavio?variant=6568056129

Her novels, which are mostly heavily autobiographical, are excellent, too

'a way of life, like any other' by darcy o'brien is really, really good i thought

hell of a title

That book is great.

Yes, love it. Looked for more by him, and they all seemed to be true crime books, which is not USUALLY my bag. Has anyone read any of them?

Yes, I read two of them, the one about the Hillside Stranglers and the one about Little Egypt. Both were extremely well done but left me feeling weird for a long while, because true crime.

Realized that the regular crime novel is usually reassuring because whatever bad stuff happens there is always some rhyme or reason, some pattern some style, whereas true crime opens up a rent in the curtain to peek into the void.

do you two have any other nyrb recommendations? i havent been reading much so far this year

Have you read The Go-Between?

Of the top of my head...

If you like beautifully written, somewhat elliptical Middle Europeans, try Skylark or Sunflower
If realistic, gritty and Beautifully written, maybe Fat City
For energetic pulpy fun, Black Wings Has My Angel
For fascinating memoirs, The Burning World
For groovy SF, The Inverted World or The Chrysalids

Is there anyone left on this borad who hasn't read Inverted World?

got it from library years ago, but it didn't hook me & I returned it unread

the closest two NYRBs from where I'm sitting is a collection of Tatyana Tolstaya stories. I've also got Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male stashed somewhere, that's a good'un; & Silvina Ocampo's volume of stories is out in the car I think. I had A High Wind in Jamaica, but I hawked it one summer, during a particularly slow week for sandwich delivery driving

Recently scored a 2nd hand copy of The Unknown Masterpiece by Balzac, which is probably the first of these I read.

Thinking we could run a poll of favourite titles. Like a Top 25.

warlock or 30 years war would walk it surely

30 yrs war and novels in three lines is all i've read /noob

both rule hard tho

the closest two NYRBs from where I'm sitting is a collection of Tatyana Tolstaya stories. I've also got Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male stashed somewhere, that's a good'un; & Silvina Ocampo's volume of stories is out in the car I think. I had A High Wind in Jamaica, but I hawked it one summer, during a particularly slow week for sandwich delivery driving

Yeah, all these are awesome in quite different ways. I guess there's a common strangeness to some of the Tolstaya and Ocampo, but very different sensibilities.

was gifted 30 Years War this past Xmas on request off the back of that fascinating thread and for w/e reason (quite possibly i was igonorantly ripe for it and simply required a catalyst to get me moving) i've gone on a history reading tear in a bunch of different directions ever since, think it would be cool if ilx occasionally took time out of its busy schedule to discuss some minor and overlooked period/event in world history and recommend excellent books upon the subject.

Maqroll the gaviero

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Misadventures-Maqroll-Review-Classics/dp/0940322919

Before the current What Are You Reading thread sinks into the archive, here's a NYRB thing I posted there

NYRB Winter Sale---50 books at 50% off (wondering about Poets In A Landscape and Pages From The Goncourt Journals)(maybe the Cendrars)

http://www.nyrb.com/collections/winter-sale?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Winter%20Sale&utm_content=NYR%20Winter%20Sale+CID_093896182073cb3e11f6921e1ab46742&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Browse%20the%20books

And some responses:

Started on The Goncourt Journal! Its compulsive reading atm: a mixture of acid bitchyness, passges of excellent crit (the way they lay into Flaubert after a reading of Salammbo, whom they otherwise have much affection for). Also has plenty of misogny - which in turn reflects on various inadequacies - the men as portrayed here can't stop talking about women. Must've been a key text for Proust.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, February 16, 2016 4:17 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's a really virtuosic pastiche of the Goncourt journals late in Recherche, iirc. (I mean, I think it's virtuosic but haven't read enough of the actual brothers to properly judge.)

― one way street, Tuesday, February 16, 2016 5:20 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So I finished Pages from the Goncourt Journals. So much in here, even though its very much the chronicle of two people who gave their lives to one thing: literature - partly because that's what they were good at (and not much else; women were such an obsession because they were a mystery - almost alien beings), but also because the stuff they were writing about like Flaubert and Zola was the stuff that 'won'. So while the subject is cult (Lit in general is a minority interest) they display a tabloid-like ear for both dialogue and speculation - people's lives and tribulations. A snatch of conversation that lingers on for long after you've read it. Something from his cousin:

Just imagine: they [the cousin's rural family] are people who for five generations have married for love

But there is are bits indicating a panorama of Paris in the 19th Century: one of the brothers - Jules - dies (at 39) Edmond carries on (3/4 of this is Edmond) and the entries surrounding his brother's death are touching and dignified. The Paris Commune starts up and this is chronicled as engagingly as what he is usually interested in.

But literature is what they gave themselves and there are insights at what the coming century will bring. The feud with Maupassant (his descent into madness and death doesn't stop Edmond from pissing away in his grave, but the charge of Flaubert minus sticks). There are snatches of a hilarious portrait of Mallarme, just this person that is beyond any comprehension. Edmond notes the weirdness of Baudelaire and so on. And then:

I am interested in novels in which I can feel the transcription in print, so to speak, of creatures in flesh and blood, in which I can read a little or a great deal of the memoirs of a life that has been lived

Where so much 20th century fic goes to (and where these Journals have been in although ironically you get a sense the life is often frustrating, in a they-are-rich-but-are-they-happy sorta way)

and regarding novels about high society:

...but unfortunately, to write novels or plays about that world you mustn't belong to it
Which is basically Proust.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, February 28, 2016 6:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Goncourt Journals is vital and glad its there but like so much in the NYRB stack its a reissue (I actually read it as a hardback of the OUP ed. from '78 I got at the library and looked the NYRB ed in a bookshop).

Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary comes with extra bits and so it would've been a nice thing to do to as much of their reissues, esp Goncourt since its by no means complete and yet you probably don't need to read it all. Thinking they could've commissioned a translation of different bits and re-select. Not just reissue.

Maqroll the gaviero

― the late great, Saturday, March 12, 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Loved this in parts - had too much going on while I picked this up so had a stop/start experience with it. But its in line with what I was talking about - I think the previous edition didn't have the complete books so NYRB got the full set out there.

s1ocki chatting with nyrb on twitter has brought this, which looks cool, to light: http://www.nyrb.com/collections/forthcoming/products/the-glory-of-the-empire?variant=6567691777

What?

a bit surprised to see some 60s J H Prynne (The White Stones) coming out in their poetry imprint

Its pretty exciting. Really looking forward to that.

yeah early parsable Prynne is great. it's in the big Poems, though, so I may skip it.

William Sloane- The Rim of Morning is a Kindle Daily Deal today

picked up copies of fat city and black wings has my angel thx to James' recs upthread... started the latter on my busride home this evening, hoo boy

Just finished An Empty Room by Mu Xin which I bought on a whim, has anyone read it?

Highly recommended, its a series of stories which are somewhere between fiction and essays, some of them brutal short stories about war and oppression, others reminiscent of Robert Walser in going for a stroll mode.