Earlier, I mentioned my Editor's Corner Tuesday Top Ten feature (today featuring Two Ravens Press publisher Sharon Blackie). Well, I'm going to go ahead and steal my own idea (hardly original, for sure) and have a Tuesday Top Ten here on ReadySteadyBook ...
Below is a list -- how exciting is this! -- of Gabriel Josipovici's "top ten novellas – or short novels, or long short stories – books of about 100 pages that ask to be read in one go. I give the English title of standard translations for all except the Perec, which, so far as I know, has not been translated:"
- Diderot, Rameau’s Nephew
- Kleist, Michael Kohlhaas
- Stifter, Ice Mountain (often translated as Rock Crystal)
- Melville, Bartleby
- Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilitch
- James, The Turn of the Screw
- Mann, Death in Venice
- Kafka, Metamorphosis
- Pinget, Passacaglia
- Perec, Un Cabinet d’Amateur
Anyone have a copy of Adalbert Stifter's Ice Mountain they want to swap for ... a pile of new books? I can't find a copy anywhere! Actually, I do have a copy (of the Pushkin Press version): I best read it!
Readers Comments
Mark, I think this is also translated as "Rock Crystal." You can buy it from Pushkin Press: http://www.pushkinpress.com/stifter-rock.html, which takes you to http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1901285278. There are a few cheap second hand copies left, though only a few ...
Oh, right -- that's me being very, very daft. I have the Pushkin ... somewhere!
NYRB Classics are publishing a version in October too: http://tinyurl.com/3p5c3g
What joy this brings!
Lee Rourke
ah, excellent.... and I'm on a Josipovici high, having just read The Singer on the Shore... much to ponder!
Passacaglia by Pinget is available in Dalkey Archive's edition called Trio:
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=1564784088
Bailbondsman - Stanley Elkin.
BritLitBlogger Stewart has written about Stifter's Rock Crystal here:
http://booklit.com/blog/2007/12/26/adalbert-stifter-rock-crystal/