Sketches of Spain Gala’s Jungle of Love and Aldecoa’s Enigma, Plus Holst’s Uppity Danish Women At the colossal Fnac megastore in Barcelona last month, you had to bushwhack your way past bales of Jean Auel’s The Shelters of Stone — the ubiquitously promoted tome could be had in no less than four separate editions: Catalan,…Continue Reading
Duck and Cover Fowl Play in Argentina, Penelope Unbound in Spain, And Birdsell’s Back in Canada Argentina’s “official historians” are quacking away over the latest provocation from historical novelist María Esther de Miguel, titled The Palace of the Ducks. The book carries forward the author’s “generally transgressive” history of Buenos Aires and adapts a detective…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Layoffs are the order of the day, though mergers, not the economy, seem to be the main reason. DK has laid off about 25 people, with more to come. Meanwhile, the move down to Hudson Street has been postponed, apparently as a cost-savings measure. No word yet on Phyllis Grann’s plans, though Random House…Continue Reading
Trading Places Guillou Turns Publisher, Potter Imposter in Spain, and Bridget Jones Down Under The prolific writer-turned-publisher Jan Guillou has commandeered the top three slots in Sweden this month, all of them part of his journey through the Middle Ages. At the top of the heap is the third in his trilogy based on the…Continue Reading
Crime and Punishment King Bites the Bullet, Crime Pays in New Zealand, and Carvalho’s on the Case in Spain In a somewhat bizarre development, Stephen King’s hotly downloaded e-novella Riding the Bullet has shot around the globe — in a bricks-and-mortar edition. Though hard-copy versions of the work were originally ruled out by the K-man,…Continue Reading
Spiritus Mundiw Chimoni’s French Miracle, Lama Love in Germany, and Italy’s Sci-Fi Satire Anyone out there remember Mr. God This Is Anna, a UK bestseller for Holt in 1975 that’s been in print at Ballantine since 1976? Well, it’s back to the future in France, where a similar title has just been published: Annaëlle Chimoni’s…Continue Reading
Apocalypse Now Amnesia Hits Spain, Horror Bloodies France, and Pokémon Ravages Australia Perhaps in compensation for the underwhelming arrival of Y2K, this month’s bestsellers have registered a potent desire for all those missed connections, fatal errors, and world-historical upheavals we were so tantalizingly promised. In Spain, Nativel Preciado’s The Narcissist plunges into the abyss of…Continue Reading
