The postman was stealth today--the dog didn't bark to alert his arrival, and he was also cool as hell, putting the book packages in between my doors and not leaving them on th wet porch (as he did one day last week).
The Quarterly issue 30 arrived today--this is the first one of the issues produced in Canada that I've received. For those keeping track, I now have issues 1-25 and 30. This one has writing from: Terese Svoboda, Christine Schutt, Sam Lipsyte, Greg Mulcahy, John Fulton, Brian Evenson, Gary Lutz, Sheila Kohler, Michael Kimball, David McLendon, Cooper Esteban and Ken Sparling among others.
A package from Open Letter Press contained two forthcoming novels: The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik, translated from the Czech by Kaca Polackova with illustrations by Jan Vaculik (sorry for the missing accents as I have NO idea how to add them here) which is due in May. From the press paperwork:
A clerk at the State Bank begins to notice that something strange is going on--bank employees are stuffing their pockets with money every day, only to have it taken every evening by the security guards who search the employees and confiscate the cash. But, there's a discrepancy between what is being confiscated and what it being returned to the bank, and our hero is beginning to fear that a secret circulation is developing, one that could undermine the whole economy.
Due in June, The Book of Happenstance from Ingrid Winterbach, translated from the Afrikaans by Dirk and Ingrid Winterbach. From the press paperwork:
An alternately sublime and satirical meditation on love, loss, and obsession, Ingrid Winterbach's The Book of Happenstance is an emotionally affecting masterpiece from one of South Africa's most exciting authors.
Two non-books arrived yesterday as well, but I think they can sneak into this post as they are: Justified, season one on DVD, and Treme, season one on DVD. How many reviews or essays refered to The Wire as being just like a novel? Many did. And Justified is based on an Elmore Leonard work (I am positive this is the first time ever that two consecutive posts reference Elmore Leonard, and it's probably about time), and Treme is by the man behind The Wire, David Simon. Both shows are great in their storytelling and storytelling techniques.
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