Tag Archives: Anne-Solange Noble

International Bestsellers: Comebacks and Debuts

After a four year sabbatical from novel-writing, the prolific and provocative Juan José Millás returns this month to sweep the Spanish bestseller lists. A slim novel at just 135 pages, Laura and Julio takes place in the author’s unusual world of the Borgesian double, exploring the idea of the original versus the copy with the…Continue Reading

Auf Wiedersehen: Sum’s the Word, Luxurious Bejeweled Elephants, Of Butterflies and Men

One + one = three in Dutch author and Libris Prize winner Tomas Lieske‘s new novel My Sovereign Love about an artisan of arithmetic, his love interest, and a meddling monarch. Born in The Hague in 1528, Marnix de Veer is a mathematician, architect, and instrument-maker extraordinaire. Also a dabbler in foreign languages, he catches…Continue Reading

Culture Shock

Italians Battle Reclusive Tenants, Food Taster Plays With Fire, Tony Soprano Takes Normandy Like an episode of House Hunters gone terribly awry, the latest offering of Italy’s Andrea De Carlo, Wind Shear, sets two well-acquainted couples (along with their trusty real estate agent) off from Milan to visit some country houses which they hope to…Continue Reading

The Big Fix: European Book Markets Experiment with Pricing Policies

“Due to fixed book prices, we Germans have 25 spaghetti cookbooks, and you poor Americans only have three,” jokes Christian Sprang, lawyer for Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (the Association of German Publishers and Booksellers). Even though US publishers might quibble, there’s no doubt that book pricing methods are controversial around the world, and will probably…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

The Waiting Game Lovelorn Levy in France, Qashu’s Israeli Arabs, And Poland’s Own Bridget Jones French architect-cum-literary-phenom Marc Levy hits the charts in both France and Italy with his second novel, Will You Be There?, a “treat of simplicity and emotion” that delves into the rendez-vous manqués between lovelorn Americans Philip and Susan, after the…Continue Reading