Olga Tokarczuk Wins the Jan Michalski

Another step in the fast-developing international visibility of the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, Switzerland’s 50,000-franc Jan Michalski Prize has gone to her ‘The Books of Jacob,’ now being translated by Jennifer Croft. Read More

A Delicate Balance: Can Blurb Become All Things To All Authors?

‘The Best Parts Of Your 2014′ If you’re like me, you may find it somewhat difficult to remember “the best parts of your 2014,” but this, nevertheless, is the kind of talk we expect from Blurb. Here’s some more: The best parts of your 2014 were moments only you could live. Now turn them into… Read More

Music For Writers: Cerrone’s ‘Cities’ Of Ancient Urban Mythology

Turn Off The Lights I have to agree with Tony Frankel at Stage and Cinema on this one: Get into your headphones and shut your eyes. Invisible Cities wants to live inside your head. And the darker that place might be, the better. Never in all my travels had I ventured as far as Adelma.… Read More

Picador Champions ‘Station Eleven’

“Hell Is Flutes” A writer who can pry that paraphrase from the jaws of Jean-Paul Satre’s “hell is other people” certainly has some chops. If she can then deliver it as a genuinely funny laugh line amid a global Huis Clos 20 years after the collapse of human civilization, she’s no slouch. Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven may hand her… Read More