Tag Archives: winter 2009

THE POSSIBLE LIFE OF CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI

Christian Boltanski and Catherine Grenier translated by Marc Lowenthal Museum of Fine Arts Boston ($35) by Mason Riddle When Christian Boltanski describes his 2004 interview sessions with art historian Catherine Grenier as “psychoanalysis” or “confessions,” the French conceptual artist is spot-on. Translated into a 200-plus-page Q & A memoir, The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski reads as part […]

ROBERTO BOLAÑO: THE LAST INTERVIEW & Other Conversations

translated by Sybil Perez Melville House Publishing ($14.95) by Mark Terrill Much has been written about the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño since his death from liver failure at age fifty in July 2003, mostly about his last two novels, The Savage Detectives and the posthumously published 2666. Some of this writing has been of a denigrating nature, devoted […]

EXODUS AND ZENITH

Julie Bertagna Walker ($16.95 each) by Kelly Everding The recent climate summit in Copenhagen last December gathered the world’s leaders to address the impending calamity our planet faces, yet they couldn’t reach any real agreement on how to address the deleterious effects of our industrial progress. Global warming will not slow down and wait for […]

THE BRIDGE OF THE GOLDEN HORN

Emine Sevgi Özdamar translated by Martin Chalmers Serpent’s Tail ($15.95) by Jeff Bursey At once tiresome and tiring, Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s The Bridge of the Golden Horn has occasional stirrings of life, humor, and interest that keep one hoping things will improve. The unnamed narrator is a young Turkish teenager whom we follow from age sixteen to […]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BIBLE!

Jonathan Goldstein Riverhead ($15) by Jesse Tangen-Mills Call it the second coming: the Bible is back. From Slate editor David Plotz’s blogs on the topic, to the success of Marilynne Robinson’s religious novels, the books some believe to be written by God are being rewritten by everybody else. But literary fascination with the Bible is […]

Two by Horacio Castellanos Moya

 DANCE WITH SNAKES Horacio Castellanos Moya translated by Lee Paula Springer Biblioasis ($15.95)  THE SHE-DEVIL IN THE MIRROR Horacio Castellanos Moya translated by Katherine Silver New Directions ($14.95) by Scott Bryan Wilson Senselessness, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s first book translated into English, appeared last year to seemingly universal and effusive acclaim. Now two more of this […]

OLD GIRLFRIENDS

David Updike St. Martin’s Press ($24.99) by Daniel Picker David Updike’s aptly titled Old Girlfriends fans the embers of old flames. The second story, “In the Age of Convertibles,” brightly paints the milieu of 1960s youthful romance—“the beautiful, inaccessible girls we would see on the beach . . . the pantheon of goddesses of our high school, […]

HOUND

Vincent McCaffrey Small Beer Press ($24) by Kristin Thiel Although longtime Boston bookseller Vincent McCaffrey’s first novel is debuting in the fall, it’s much more of a winter book—and for more reason than that it’s set in and around the crisp Beacon Hill neighborhood from late fall through Christmas. A young Jimmy Stewart could play […]

SPOON

Robert Greer Fulcrum Publishing ($24.95) by Jaspar Lepak Set near Hardin, Montana, in 1991, Spoon is a modern-day Western, complete with good guys, bad guys, and inclement weather. This time, the battle of good and evil takes place at Willow Creek Ranch, and the good guys are the Darley family, who have owned and farmed the land […]