Sam Sacks Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Sam Sacks

Seagull Books are just so beautifully made. Among my favorites are Yves Bonnefoy's 'The Arrière-pays', Léonora Miano's 'Season of the Shadow,' René Char’s 'Hypnos' and Christoph Ransmayr's 'Cox' https://t.co/S91IYVRcDf

Sam Sacks

In this weekend's @WSJBooks, I attempt to make the case *for* Hanya Yanagihara's 'A Little Life' but *against* her new novel 'To Paradise'. Do I pull it off? Read to find out! https://www.wsj.com/articles/fiction-to-paradise-review-11641572314

Sam Sacks

I really enjoyed Justin Taylor's openly flummoxed piece on the new Cormac McCarthy novels, and especially this incredulous summary of 'The Road'. For the record, though, the best work of fiction from 2006 was 'Memorial', by Bruce Wagner. https://t.co/28t23FUGcv https://t.co/XhTfd1zbj7

Sam Sacks

A strange return to fiction in a new language by Jhumpa Lahiri in 'Whereabouts' (which she also translated)--very Ginzburgian: dry, somewhat opaque, unsparing in all directions, a bit mean, somehow haunting. I loved it. https://t.co/ARNaTCuRIJ

Sam Sacks

And for the opposite of a debut--indeed, it's basically the same book the author has already written three or four times, and therefore mastered--there was Andrew Holleran's rapturously sad and elegiac 'The Kingdom of Sand' https://t.co/FwO9rVqrdP

Sam Sacks

Yevgenia Belorusets' moving, slightly surreal collection "Lucky Breaks" is about life in Ukraine after the 2014 war. The author is currently in Kyiv and is publishing remarkable daily war diary entries for @_isolarii_ https://t.co/6A1bZ6v5p0

Sam Sacks

Rhymes and puns and other wordplay abound, lending a feeling of spritzy frivolity to an otherwise long and death-haunted tale...No doubt the digressions and embroideries are part of this novel’s rejection of borders. It will wander as its whim takes it, and if its voice appeals to you, you won’t regret its rambles.

Sam Sacks

Also reviewed is Scholastique Mukasonga's 'Kibogo'. Mukasonga has necessarily written about the Rwandan genocide, and done so honorably and well. But here she gives herself a break from the subject, which lets her show off her playful, satirical side. I liked it a lot.

Sam Sacks

A very interesting @WSJBooks review by Anna Mundow of Hugo Hamilton's 'The Pages', a novel that is narrated by a copy of Joseph Roth's novel 'Rebellion' https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pages-and-rebellion-review-joseph-roth-book-escaped-from-the-nazi-pyre-11643987383?mod=djembooks

Sam Sacks

And I was grateful for Larry Rohter's review of Gayl Jones's 'Palmares', a book that to an uncommon degree invites and is even improved by a diversity of critical interpretations https://t.co/kaT5PvUXOf