The Museum of Innocence Orhan Pamuk Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009 This beautiful novel by Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk uses the story of a rich Turkish man’s selfish love of a shop girl as a metaphor for the struggles of a Westernizing society that clings to its traditional view of women as chattel. In [...]
Diary of a Bad Year – Advance Readers Copy J.M. Coetzee Text, Australia, 2007 This brilliant book combines essays on a wide range of topics for a fictional publication entitled Strong Opinions, and diary entries about the relationship the aging essayist develops with his young typist. The essays run at the top of each page, while [...]
Slow Man J.M. Coetzee Viking, U.S.A. 2005 Slow Man was Coetzee’s first novel after winning the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is a brilliant look at the relationship between the writer and his characters. Although the reviews for this book were mixed, I personally find it to be one of his greatest achievements. The [...]
Shadows on the Hudson Isaac Bashevis-Singer Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, U.S.A. 1998 This novel by Nobel Prize winning writer Isaac Bashevis-Singer was published posthumously. If you click on the publishers note to the left, you will see that he originally wrote this book in the late 1940′s and published it in a serialized form in [...]
The Sound and the Fury and AsI Lay Dying William Faulkner The Modern Library, U.S.A. 1946 The Modern Library puts out well made and handsome reprints of modern classics. This publication is unusual in that it is comprised of two of Nobel laureate William Faulkner’s greatest works. Which is cool, because they just happen to [...]
The Stone Raft Jose Saramago Harcourt, Brace and Company, U.S.A. 1995 This fantastic story, wherein the Iberian Peninsula breaks free from the mainland and sails away, took eight years to come out in English translation, the longest time of any of Saramago’s books. It was only once Blindness came out, three years after The Stone Raft, [...]
Humboldt’s Gift Saul Bellow Viking, U.S.A. 1976 Humboldt’s Gift won the 1976 Pulitzer prize for fiction and was nominated for the National Book Award. Later that same year, Bellow won the Nobel Prize for literature. According to Wikipedia, he is the only writer to be nominated for the National Book Award six times and the [...]
A Silver Dish Saul Bellow Albondocani Press, New York, 1979 This well-reviewed long story was Bellow’s first book to come out after winning the 1976 Nobel Prize for literature. It was first published in the New Yorker in 1978 and was later included in the 1984 collection Him With His Foot in His Mouth. This [...]
Baltasar and Blimunda Jose Saramago Harcourt Brace, U.S. 1987 Baltasar and Blimunda is set in Mafra, Portugal during the construction of the Convent of Mafra. It was the era of the Inquisition. Several historical characters are woven into the story, such as Domenico Scarlatti and aviation pioneer Father Bartholomeu de Gusmao. This novel received very [...]
Snow Orhan Pamuk Knopf, U.S.A. 2004 Snow was Pamuk’s last work of fiction to come out before he won the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature. His previous novel, My Name is Red, won the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The true first English language edition of this book is the British Faber and Faber publication, and [...]