Best of 2010...

Here you go... The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell and Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño...npb

The Fist Roberto Bolaño...

I know, I know more Roberto Bolaño recommendations from Green Apple...

But this is his first book ever! The book he waited twenty years into his career to publish. The book Bolaño himself said, "the only novel that doesn't embarrass me is Antwerp."

Here is what I will say: Just today opened my locker to see a small, black, hardcover book with gold foil stamping on the front (the picture to the left does no justice). I turned the book to look at the spine to see in the same gold foil stamping ND.

So I spent my breaks reading the first 20 pages of this magical book and trying to figure out just what to make of it. . . .

Well, I'm loving it, though I can see what Bolaño means in his introduction when he says, "I never brought this novel to any publishing house, of course. They would've slammed the door in my face and I'd have lost the copy."

All that Bolaño will later write is in this small, concise, beautiful surrealist murder mystery that travels countries and continents and literary borders.

Highlights From BookExpo America 2010...

This year BookExpo America was busy, a good time, and a lot of work. Everywhere we went people were spotting Pete from the Green Apple Book vs. the Kindle Videos, commenting on how much they like the store, or ignoring us to stand in very long lines to get some random author to sign some random book that may or may not be worth the time.

As for myself I was trying to find the few small press booths around to see what the Fall will bring. Some of what I saw just came out, some is set for the Summer. Here are the books that look like great reads to me...

Anne Carson's Nox hit our display table just as I was getting ready to leave for B.E.A. and it is beautiful. I haven't had time to dissect and enjoy this book yet, but what I have read is amazing. New Directions was prominently displaying this and Antwerp, which I previously wrote about here.
New Directions says of Nox, "Anne Carson’s haunting and beautiful Nox is her first book of poetry in five years — a unique, illustrated, accordion-fold-out 'book in a box.'

Nox is an epitaph in the form of a book, a facsimile of a handmade book Anne Carson wrote and created after the death of her brother. The poem describes coming to terms with his loss through the lens of her translation of Poem 101 by Catullus 'for his brother who died in the Troad.' Nox

is a work of poetry, but arrives as a fascinating and unique physical object. Carson pasted old letters, family photos, collages and sketches on pages. The poems, typed on a computer, were added to this illustrated 'book,' creating a visual and reading experience so amazing as to open up our concept of poetry."

Along with the new release of Joshua Cohen's book Witz, Dalkey Archive is getting ready for the release of Best European Fiction 2011, in their annual Best European Fiction series. I, for one, cannot wait for this collection, as 2010 was amazing.

Green Apple also got a big thank you for our Running Away video!

(Also check out Self-Portrait Abroad: A Novel Toussaint's newest release from Dalkey)

One of my new friends in the publishing world is Graywolf Press. They have been putting out quality books since the mid-seventies, but have really come into their own. What were they touting for the Summer/Fall? Well it shouldn't be too hard to guess since I put a picture of the cover just to the left of this...

That's right a new Per Petterson novel, I Curse the River of Time. It's short but this galley has already been making the rounds and looks to be just what it is...another fantastic book from Per Petterson!

I also got to meet Jessica Francis Kane, who's first novel, The Report, will be released in September.

And lastly (though there were a lot of great books to be seen this year I will update you on more later) The good people of Coffee House Press are very excited by Andrew Ervin's Extraordinary Renditions.

So stay tuned to thegreenapplecore and always check out our display shelves for the best in small press new releases.

Robert Wasler — Microscripts

New Directions has been putting out some really classy, good-looking books this year. I've mentioned Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp quite a couple of times, and last week I talked about Anne Carson's Nox; well here is another exciting and beautiful addition for your bookshelves...

The long awaited translations of Robert Walser's (The Assistant & The Tanners) Microscripts!

When Walser passed away in 1956 the executor of his estate, Carl Seelig, assumed that the small strips of paper were covered with markings around a millimeter or two high. Seelig figured that Walser had been writing in an undecipherable code while being hospitalized for schizophrenia in the Waldau Sanitarium.

What have now been termed Walser's Microscripts, turned out to be a miniaturized form of the Kurrent script, a kind of shorthand for German-speaking countries that was used until the mid-twentieth century. These Microscripts turned out to be early versions of Walser's novels and countless stories. New Directions has collected some of these stories, along with full-color plates of the original Microscripts.

These short stories are wonderful, masterful examples of the great storyteller Walser was. Susan Bernofsky has done an excellent job translating and Walter Benjamin's afterword is captivating.

Any fan of Walser (or literature) will get endless pleasure from this book.