NYRB's Summer 2008 Titles

One of the most disorienting things about publishing is the time gap between when you first hear about a title and when it actually comes out. It’s really bad from the editing end of things—frequently you first encounter a book two-plus years before it’s published and on bookstore shelves.

Even as a pure consumer, this gap can be frustrating. For instance, in today’s mail, I got the new New York Review Books catalog. As a huge fan (aren’t we all?), I’m always exciting to see what they’re coming out with, and this catalog includes a few interesting books, none of which will be available until the middle of next year . . .

The two titles that most caught my eye are:

• The Family Mashber by Der Nister, translated from the Yiddish by Leonard Wolf: compared to The Brothers Karamazov this is a “detailed an panoramic picture of an Eastern European town and its people, a social satire, a kabbalistic allegory, a brilliantly innovative fusion of modernist art and traditional storytelling, a tale of weird humor and mounting tragic power.” (May 2008.)

• The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Sally Laird: This is a fantastic—and very funny—novel about thousands of citizens waiting in line for . . . something. The novel is entirely in dialogue (except for one expository passage if memory serves) and functions almost like a three-act play. I read this in the Readers International version years ago, and am really looking forward to reading it again next August when it comes out. . .