And Now There Are Two

This morning, the second Open Letter book arrived — The Pets by Bragi Olafsson.

Just last week, Kirkus reviewed this, giving it the most positive review I’ve read in quite some time:

Icelandic novelist Ólafsson’s English-language debut is part Beckettian or even Kafkaesque black comedy, part existentialist novel in the Paul Auster mode, and part locked-room mystery in which the murderee is alive and well and hiding in the bedroom. [. . .] Dark, strange, elusive, compelling and oddly charming.

To celebrate this release, through the end of the month, you can purchase a copy through the Open Letter website for $10.50 (which seems absurdly cheap for a hardcover). Of course, you can always buy a subscription and get 6 books for $65 or 12 titles for $120.

Bragi’s reading tour kicks off of October 6 with an event in Buffalo, then on the 7th he’ll have a reading and conversation with Lytton Smith here at the University of Roichester. On October 8th at 7:00pm, he’ll be at McNally Jackson in New York with Dubravka Ugresic, and on Thursday the 9th he’ll do a lunchtime event at Idlewild Books in NY, followed by an evening event at Book Culture (formerly Labyrinth) along with Mark Binelli.

Then, on Saturday, October 11th, he’ll be participating in the Twin Cities Book Festival, before flying off to Seattle for a reading at Elliot Bay Book Company.

I’ll post a more detailed schedule in a couple weeks, and of course, we’ll post any and all recordings of these events.