Top 10 books of 2006(?)

I’m assuming most of you have already seen the nytimes’ list of best books of 2006, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to repeat how I didn’t like Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan. It has been reviewed all over the place, including Germany’s Die Zeit, which called the author ”as evil as Borat and funnier than Nabakov.”

I couldn’t get more than half-way through it without falling asleep. Slapstick humor is not my cup of tea. My roommate Eric had more or less the same experience, thoughhe was more impressed upon seeing Shteyngart in person at a reading we were at in Seattle.

How the National Book Awards are picked

The Los Angeles Times has a piece by one of the judges of this year’s National Book Awards, outlining the general procedure for picking candidates and finally arriving at the winner. (This year’s winner was “The Echo Maker” by Richard Powers). The author also comments on the irrevelancy of literary prizes in general..

On another note, I’m slowling slogging through Pynchon’s Against the Day, though I probably won’t finish it in time to write a review.

American editing versus Canadian Editing

I’d been hesitant to post my last review of Murakami’s book of stories Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, mainly because it was so chopped up in the different papers I saw. But, finally, I received a google alert that one of the Canadian sites had printed it, and, lo and behold, I was able to read the whole review as I had sent it off to my editor.

Lesson to be learned: American newspapers like short, choppy reviews of less than 300 words, whereas their Canadian counterparts want something that reads a bit more smoothly, with more details.

For the sake of comparison, here is the review in Canada, here is the review in most American papers.

An American wins the Prix Goncourt

Jonathan Littell, an American who writes in French, won France’s most prestigious literary prize this weekend, for his 903 page book “Les Bienvaillantes.” It had already won the Acadamie Française’s prize for best new fiction a month before..