2 September 11 | Chad W. Post |

Since the University of Rochester fall semester started on Wednesday, we decided that this week’s podcast would center around books that you should read in college. This includes things that should be taught in classes, some general comments on teaching the life out of literature, and why teaching literature in translation is a good idea.

Read More...

....
And the Hippies Came (Llegaron los hippies)
And the Hippies Came (Llegaron los hippies) by Manuel Abreu Adorno
Reviewed by Vincent Francone

Kids these days. They think they’ve invented everything. The McOndo writers and Crack Generation, who so proudly buck the Magic Realist tendencies of García Márquez, who seek to find a place within Latin American letters sans spirits . . .. . .

Read More >

Traveler of the Century
Traveler of the Century by Andrés Neuman
Reviewed by Chad W. Post

When I was about two-thirds of the way through Neuman’s very ambitious, very engrossing novel, Bromance Will Evans asked me what I thought the purpose the rapist had in this book. Not who the rapist was—something that’s held in suspense. . .

Read More >

Anatomy of a Night
Anatomy of a Night by Anna Kim
Reviewed by Jennifer Marquart

“At night Amarâq is coated with a darkness as viscous as unmixed colors, neither the fjord nor the mountains, valleys, lakes, or the river exist, there is only a black mass, a void that spreads across the landscape sporadically, pressing. . .

Read More >

Les aigles puent
Les aigles puent by Lutz Bassman
Reviewed by John Thomas Mahany

If you’ve been following any of the recent Antoine Volodine talk going around Three Percent—both on the blog or on the podcasts—and have heard his fans wax obsessive over all his alter author-egos, you’re probably starting to feel some Volodine. . .

Read More >

Red Spectres
Red Spectres by V. Bryusov/M. Bulgakov/S. Krzhizhanovsky et al.
Reviewed by Aleksandra Fazlipour

Muireann Maguire’s Red Spectres is a stunning and engaging collection of eleven Russian gothic tales written by various authors during the early Soviet Era, all but two stories of which are featured in English for the first time ever. These. . .

Read More >

El arte de la resurrección (The Art of Resurrection)
El arte de la resurrección (The Art of Resurrection) by Hernán Rivera Letelier
Reviewed by Jeremy Osner

“The small stone plaza was floating in the midday heat. The Christ of Elqui, kneeling on the ground, his gaze thrown back on high, the part in his hair dark under the Atacaman sun—he felt himself falling into an ecstasy.. . .

Read More >

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories
There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
Reviewed by Brendan Riley

This slender, uncanny volume—the second, best-selling collection of stories by Russian author Ludmilla Petrushevskaya to appear in the U.S.—has already received considerable, well-deserved praise from many critics and high profile publications. Its seventeen short tales, averaging ten pages each, are. . .

Read More >