The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Pascal Quignard's The Answer to Lord Chandos, coming out from Wakefield Press.        This is Quignard's response to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's classic 'Lord Chandos Letter' -- see, for example, the recent Joel Rotenberg translation from New York Review Books. Quignard dates his letter to Chandos 23 April 1605 -- and today, 23 April, happens also to be Quignard's birthday ..read more

       The Crime Writers' Association has announced the longlists for their Daggers awards -- unfortunately not in one convenient list; annoyingly, you have to click on each category to see the longlisted titles. (The Bookseller has an (incomplete) overview.)        One of the titles longlisted for the Gold Dagger for best crime novel is under review at the complete review -- The Secret Hours, by Mick Herron.        Disappointingly, I haven't seen any of the titles longlisted for the Dagger ..read more

       They've announced the winners of this year's L.A. Times Book Prizes -- twelve categories, with Ed Park's Same Bed Different Dreams taking the fiction prize.        I not only have not reviewed any of the winning titles, I haven't seen a single one of the sixty (!) finalists. I am apparently really not keeping up with the latest titles ..read more

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the latest Scarlett Thomas, The Sleepwalkers ..read more

       Philosopher Daniel Dennett has passed away; see, for example, the obituary in The New York Times.        The only one of his books under review at the complete review is his Breaking the Spell ..read more

       At Sixth Tone Zhou Min reports on How 'Farming Literature' Became China's Hottest Genre: This genre centers around a female protagonist’s efforts to get rich while battling various villains -- mainly in the guise of demanding relatives -- and has become widely popular with Chinese web novel readers and film and TV viewers ..read more

       The title of my novel Salome in Graz refers to a 1906 performance of the Richard Strauss opera, but if you want to get in the mood for reading it there's now another recent perfomance available for free viewing online: via I'm pointed to the recent Irish National Opera production that's now viewable at Operavision; you can watch it there through 19 October ..read more

       The April issue of Asymptote is now up -- a ton of content, enough to keep you covered for the weekend.        And just a few days ago I mentioned that Faroese Literature was getting some good attention -- and there's a good dose of Literature from the Faroe Islands in this issue as well ..read more

       They've announced the winner of this year's Republic of Consciousness Prize -- rewarding: "the best fiction by small presses [in the UK/Ireland] publishing 12 or fewer titles a year and are wholly independent of any other commercial financial entity" -- and it is Charco Press, for Of Cattle and Men, by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Zoë Perry; see, for example, the report at The Guardian ..read more

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Griffin Poetry Prize -- "the world's largest international prize for a single book of poetry written in, or translated into English" --, selected from 592 entries (including 49 translations, from 22 languages), with Don McKay getting the Lifetime Recognition Award ..read more