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Design, the Kindle, and Reading Newspapers

Farhad Manjoo’s recent piece in Slate offers a unique take on one of the advantages newspapers have over the Kindle—the ability to convey information through design elements: Every newspaper you’ve ever read was put together by someone with an opinion about which of the day’s stories was most ...

"This Part of Town Is No Place For Old-Timers" by Jachym Topol [Guardian Short Stories from Eastern Europe]

The final installment in The Guardian‘s_ Stories from a New Europe series is This Part of Town Is No Place for Old-Timers by Czech author Jachym Topol. David Short translated this piece about a Czech writer remembering life before 1989, his father’s failure as a writer and dissident, and how the post-wall society ...

The Twin

Penetrating, beautifully sparse, and eerie in its stillness, Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin tells the story of Helmer van Wonderen, an aging farmer whose life has been characterized by passivity, inaction, and a profound sense of isolation. Having begrudgingly taken over the family dairy farm after the accidental death of his ...

Latest Review: The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker

Our latest review is of The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, and published earlier this year by Archipelago Books. Larissa Kyzer—who has reviewed a number of books for us—wrote this piece, which makes the book sound both quiet and compelling: Penetrating, beautifully sparse, ...

Frankfurt Book Fair: Finland and International Booksellers

Over the past couple days, I’ve received two interesting press releases from the Frankfurt Book Fair worth sharing. First off, it was announced earlier this week that Finland will be the 2014 Guest of Honor. From the press release: Finland is known for its literary export of children’s books – for example, ...

"Mustafa" by Nikolai Grozni [Guardian Short Stories from Eastern Europe]

Today’s installment in “The Guardian‘s” week of Eastern European stories is Mustafa by Nikolai Grozni. By far the funniest piece of the week, “Mustafa” centers around a funereal gone awry: In any event, questioning the authenticity of my grandmother’s body at her funeral was not ...

A River & A Sound and an Interesting Danish Writer

A River & A Sound is a brand new online magazine published in association with the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University that grew out of a one-of-a-kind, literary entertainment program designed to make literary events more exciting. You can check out the rest of the magazine at the link above, but ...