What happened in May? With IFFP duties finally over for the year, it was just another month, with another pile of books... My K-Lit obsession is now in full swing, and you can rest assured that there'll be plenty of reviews of Korean literature in the coming months (especially now that I've discovered the joys of my local university library!).But let's move on to the stats, shall we?
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Total Books Read: 10
Year-to-Date: 56
New: 8
Rereads: 2
From the Shelves: 2
Review Copies: 5
From the Shelves: 2
Review Copies: 5
From the Library: 3
On the Kindle: 1 (1 review copy)
Novels: 7
Novels: 7
Novellas: 1
Short Stories:2
Short Stories:2
Non-English Language: 10 (5 Korean, Icelandic, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic)
In Original Language: 0
Aussie Author Challenge: 0 (0/3)
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Books reviewed in May were:
1) Ten by Andrej LongoBooks reviewed in May were:
2) An Appointment with His Brother and Other Stories by Yi Mun-yol
3) Dispute over a Very Italian Piglet by Amara Lakhous
4) A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli
5) Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
6) Running through Beijing by Xu Zechen
7) The Guest by Hwang Sok-yong
8) They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy
9) Papers in the Wind by Eduardo Sacheri
10) The Dwarf by Cho Se-hui
Tony's Turkey for May is:
Edith Grossman's Why Translation Matters
Translation matters, and Grossman is a world-famous exponent of the art. However, this book, taken from some lectures she gave on the subject, is nothing more than a turkey - a huge disappointment :(
Tony's Recommendation for May is:
Miklós Bánffy's They Were Counted
If I'm honest, this wasn't a great month for reviews, with Grossman's turkey accompanied by reviews of some good, but unexceptional, books. Some of the better books included those by Hwang Sok-yong and Amara Lakhous, but in this company, Bánffy's lengthy story of a society on the brink of its downfall stands head and shoulders above the competition :)
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I'm very excited about what's coming up in June - not just because I have a stack of books that I'm eager to get reading, but also because one of my favourite events is up again. The eighth edition of Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge starts in June, and (as always) I'll be dusting off some books on my J-Lit shelves to join in. I'll also (finally!) be starting the book I decided I would finish this year - The Tale of Genji :)
