Tag Archives: Gyldendal

International Bestsellers, October 2014

Every month, Publishing Trends runs fiction international bestsellers lists from four territories–France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. This month, our four regular territories are joined by two more: Norway and China.  Those books that have been published in English are listed with their official English-language title. All others are translated as literally as possible from the…Continue Reading

Little Engines That Could: Children’s Publishers in Europe’s Smaller Markets

In anticipation of the Bologna International Book Fair, there’s no shortage of buzz about the fast-emerging kids’ markets in Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world, along with curiosity about how the traditional powerhouses of France, Spain, and Germany are faring. Falling somewhere in between, the smaller European territories are feeling the benefit of Asian…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Great Danes & Swede Reads

Shakespeare may have opined “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” but it is the steady slew of crime-fiction writers who hail from the region that should be credited with doing a bang-up job of keeping the sentiment alive and well. By far the most popular genre in Scandinavia, psychological thrillers and suspense-filled novels…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Translating Math for the Masses

What Jostein Gaarder did for philosophy, Tefkros Michailidis seems to be doing for mathematics, bringing the history of math to the mainstream in novel form. A high school teacher by trade, a translator of math-inspired fiction and non-fiction by night, and now a debut novelist, Michailidis, with Pythagorean Crimes (POLIS), continues a trend in Greece…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Friction Among Factions

30-Somethings, Tigers, and the Algerian Liberation Front As if being CEO of a multinational company and founder of the successful business book summary site getAbstract.com weren’t enough, Rolf Dobelli added the title of novelist to his resumé in 2001 when, on his 35th birthday, he began writing fiction. Two years later, the Swiss-born PhD published…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Double Dose

Twice the Trouble In France and Norway Reminiscent of a campus novel by David Lodge, Helene Uri’s The Best Among Us presents a picture of contemporary life in the Norwegian university scene. If anyone is familiar with this setting, it’s Helene Uri. A linguist and writer, she resigned from her university job several years ago…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Joe Speedboat & Friends

Sylvia Plath, Puberty, & A Slowly Setting Midnight Sun Combining the quirky prose of Paul Auster and the eccentricity of The World According to Garp, Dutch author Tommy Wieringa’s latest novel, Joe Speedboat (De Bezige Bij), injects the classic Bildungsroman with postmodern absurdity. The eponymous protagonist, a fourteen year-old bomb expert, airplane builder, and kinetic…Continue Reading

Summer Books Sail: Burly Killers, Peppermints, & Wannabe Nuns

In its first two weeks in print, He Who Blinks is Afraid of Death (Aschehoug) sold 4,000 copies in Denmark, a huge number for a debut novel. An autobiographical narrative set in the 1960s, the novel tracks the odd life of a young boy whose German mother is schizophrenic. His Danish father, an insurance agent,…Continue Reading

Domestic Issues Abroad

Not So Foreign Family Problems Fill the Lists The bright blue and red cover of YOU’RE JOKING, MONSIEUR TANNER (l’Olivier), French author Jean-Paul Dubois‘ most recent bestseller, shows a man on hands and knees who’s painted himself into a corner. This is Paul Tanner, a wildlife documentary filmmaker who suddenly inherits the grand family manse,…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

Cafés-philo all over France are abuzz with the newly hip notion of “anti-anti-Americanism,” and the headiest homage to contrarian Frenchness comes from Yves Berger, the legendary literary director of Editions Grasset — and a member of the august Conseil Supérieur de la langue française — who has hit the charts with his Dictionary for Lovers…Continue Reading