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martes 24 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Counterpoint


Título: A Book of Silence
Autora: Sara Maitland
Número de páginas: 320
Editorial: Counterpoint
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Reino Unido
ISBN: 978-1582435176
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "In her late forties, after a noisy upbringing as one of six children and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland found herself living alone in the country, and, to her surprise, falling in love with silence. In this fascinating, intelligent, beautifully written book, Maitland describes how she set out to explore this new love, spending periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Scottish hills, and a remote cottage on the Isle of Skye.
Maitland finds her experiences both euphoric and dark, mirrored in the accounts of others who have encountered silence — from explorers and mystics to long-distance sailors. And in a wonderfully confiding, witty voice, she delves deep into the rich cultural history of silence, exploring its significance in fairytale and myth, its importance to the Western and Eastern religious traditions, and its use in psychoanalysis and artistic expression.
Maitland’s journey into silence holds surprises and setbacks, but mainly reveals a deepening happiness. Her story culminates in her building a hermitage on an isolated moor in Galloway, and as she guides readers through experiences of silence in this new home, she evokes a sense of peace that includes the reader in its intimate tranquility.
"

Otros títulos notables de la autora:
. Daughter of Jerusalem (1978)
. Telling Tales (1983)
. A Map of the New Country: Women and Christianity (1983)
. Virgin Territory (1984)
. Vesta Tilley Virago (1986)
. A Book of Spells (1987)
. Three Times Table (1991)
. Women Fly When Men Aren't Watching (1992)
. Home Truths (1993)
. A Big-Enough God: Artful Theology Mowbray (1994)
. Angel and Me (1996)
. Hagiographies (1998)
. Brittle Joys (1999)
. Novel Thoughts: Religious Fiction in Contemporary Culture (1999)
. Awesome God: Creation, Commitment and Joy (2002)
. On Becoming A Fairy Godmother Maia (2003)
. Far North & Other Dark Tales (2008)

Leyendo


Título: Los incompletos
Autor: Sergio Chejfec
Número de páginas: 200
Editorial: Alfaguara
Fecha original de publicación: 2004
País: Argentina
ISBN: 978-9505119714
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.alfaguara.com.ar) "Un viajero crónico envía mensajes que no dicen mucho. Las peripecias y la geografía del mundo se traducen, para el amigo que los lee, en una elocuencia casi telegráfica, por cuentagotas. En ese vacío de noticias se impone la imaginación, que desde los resquicios del pasado, de la cultura o del lugar común construye un simulacro de realidad sostenido por sitios incompletos y un tanto inventados. Para ello recurre a seres truncos, modelos o maniquíes, individuos semiartificiales cuyo único rasgo humano es su naturaleza fabricada.
Las narraciones de Sergio Chejfec proponen un mundo firme e inseguro a la vez; no excluyen las maniobras convencionales de la ficción literaria, pero avanzan por otras vías, como la fijación de situaciones, el rodeo sobre los temas, la interrogación acerca de la calidad de los hechos. Novela que presenta una inusual combinación de belleza y complejidad, con sus circunvalaciones
Los incompletos asume el reto de integrar en el relato la forma vacilante, incompleta, definitiva pero misteriosa, del presente.
"
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Lenta biografía (1990)
. Moral (1990)
. El aire (1992)
. Cinco (1996)
. El llamado de la especie (1997)
. Los planetas (1999)
. Boca de lobo (2000)
. Tres poemas y una merced (2002)
. El punto vacilante (2005)
. Baroni: un viaje (2007)
. Mis dos mundos (2008)

lunes 23 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Harper


Título: Not That Kind of Girl
Autor: Carlene Bauer
Número de páginas: 288
Editorial: Harper
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0060840549
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "Raised in evangelical churches that preached apocalypse now, Carlene Bauer grows up happy to oblige the God who presides over her New Jersey girlhood. But in high school and college, her intellectual and spiritual horizons widen, and she becomes skeptical of the judgmental God she's been given. Still, she finds it hard to let go of the ideals she's been raised with, and to rebel as she knows she should. She loves rock and roll, but politely declines offers of sex and drugs; she thinks the Bible and the Norton Anthology of American Literature are equally authoritative guides to life. Since there are no churches worshipping the Jesus Paul Westerberg sang about in 'Can't Hardly Wait,' and no tidy categories for those who are neither riot grrrls nor altar girls, she hovers between a hunger for the world and a suspicion of it.
In her twenties, however, determined to make up for lost time, Bauer undertakes a belated and often comic coming-of-age in New York City. Between late blooming at parties and staying late at work, it seems that she might become as bold as she'd hoped to be—even if the late blooming is a little more hapless than highly erotic. And yet the city and its pleasures do not distract her from another hope: that she might learn how to have a faith that she can truly call her own. Enter the Catholic Church, and a conversion. But then she falls in love, and loses her religion—which leaves her wondering just what it means to be good.
Sharply written, hilarious, and touching, Not That Kind of Girl is the story of one young woman's efforts to define worldliness, ambition, and love on her own terms—while believing in, among other things, The Smiths, Virginia Woolf, and the transformative power of New York City. Fellow restless seekers will find solace in Bauer's struggle to create meaning in the face of overwhelming doubt, and fall in love with the highly original voice at the center of this unforgettable debut."

domingo 22 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad W.W. Norton & Co.


Título: Ulysses and Us: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce's Masterpiece
Autor: Declan Kiberd
Número de páginas: 416
Editorial: W.W. Norton & Co.
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Irlanda
ISBN: 978-0393070996
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Kiberd's take on Ulysses should be on every undergraduate syllabus that includes Joyce's epic work, as it is an ideal introduction for the uninitiated—accessible, richly argued, funny and, in a kind of devil's advocacy fashion, begging for rebuttal. The author of the important and controversial Inventing Ireland argues that it is time to reconnect Ulysses to the everyday lives of people and fetch it back from the more snobbish modernists, who have conspired to give the book a reputation of being unreadable by the ordinary people for whom it was intended. Kiberd places the book in its time—a world which had known for the first time the possibilities of mass literacy, a time when ordinary laborers read Shakespeare, Ruskin and Macaulay. Ulysses, says Kiberd is an epic of the bourgeoisie, most of the book set in Dublin's public places, where men and women interrelate—the library, the cemetery, shops, pubs, a hospital. As Kiberd works his argument through each chapter of Ulysses, readers will be fascinated by the father-son reconciliation that is at the heart of the novel, and will forever appreciate how the pyrotechnics that dominate the second half are there simply to deepen the explorations of a very simple theme: how to live, and how, like Odysseus, to get home."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Synge and the Irish Language (1979)
. Men and Feminism in Modern Literature (1985)
. Idir Dhá Chultúr (1993)
. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (1995)
. Irish Classics (2000)
. The Irish Writer And The World (2005)

Novedad Riverhead


Título: Juliet, Naked
Autor: Nick Hornby
Número de páginas: 416
Editorial: Riverhead
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Reino Unido
ISBN: 978-1594488870
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Hornby returns to his roots: music, manic fandom and messy romance in his funny and touching latest, dancing between three perspectives on fame: a sycophantic scholar, an appreciative audience member, a fabled singer-songwriter who can't see what all the fuss is about. After cult musician Tucker Crowe vanished from the public eye 20 years ago, his small but devoted fan base built up a mythology around his oeuvre and the people and places associated with his storied life. Self-appointed Crowologist Duncan has indoctrinated his girlfriend, Annie, on the wonders of Tucker, but when Annie fails to recognize the genius of a newly released version of Crowe's classic album Juliet, their 15-year relationship quickly crumbles. Meanwhile, Duncan's glowing first review is increasingly de-bated, while Annie's deconstructive essay posted on the same Web site earns her a clandestine e-mail correspondence with the reclusive musician. Soon, their exchanges grow more personal; given that Tucker lives in an American backwater and Annie resides in a remote English town, both view their e-mails as a safe flirtation until the dissolution of Tucker's latest marriage and a crisis with one of his several neglected children brings him to Annie's side of the Atlantic. Through brisk dialogue and quick scene changes, Hornby highlights each character's misconceptions about his or her own life, and though Duncan, Annie and Tucker are consistently ridiculous and often self-destructive, they are portrayed with an extraordinary degree of sympathy. Tucker's status of Dylan by way of Salinger allows for an intriguing critique of celebrity fetishization and of the motives behind the eccentricity that comes along with fame. Obviously, this is a must-read for Hornby's fans, but it also works as a surprisingly thoughtful complement to the piles of musician bios and memoirs."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Fever Pitch (1992)
. High Fidelity
(1995)
. About a Boy (1998)
. Faith (1998)
. How to Be Good (2001)
. 31 Songs (2003)
. The Polysyllabic Spree (2004)
. A Long Way Down (2005)
. Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt (2006)
. Slam (2007)
. Shakespeare Wrote for Money (2008)

Leyendo


Título: Answer Song
Autor: David Trinidad
Número de páginas: 128
Editorial: Serpent's Tail
Fecha original de publicación: 1994
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1852423292
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Trinidad's (Pavane) newest volume of poetry (and a few prose pieces) is unadulterated camp-meditations on gay life, sex and love intermixed with cloying, nostalgic chronicles of American pop culture (cereals of the late '70s and early '80s are displayed prominently). Trinidad explores these subjects in a plain, shoot-from-the-hip style, never lapsing into artifice or bombast. Unfortunately, he rarely lapses into poetry, either; lines like 'My lover who vomits on me in the middle of sex and passes out' and 'So how did you know I was having bad dreams?/ Because you woke up and told me-/ just like in that poem' abound. By juxtaposing the emotionality of human relationships with the infectious dissonance of pop culture, the writer succeeds in his ambition to illustrate the essential meaninglessness of both. But Trinidad's success seems accomplished almost by default: his excavations of advertising jingles and TV theme music are the only works that come close to approaching the charged quality of poetry. Answer Song may leave readers feeling like they have just eaten an entire box of Trix-satisfied and sugared, yet nervous."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Pavane (1981)
. Monday, Monday (1985)
. Living Doll (1986)
. November (1987)
. Three Stories (1988)
. A Taste of Honey (with Bob Flanagan, 1990)
. Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (1991)
. Essay with Movable Parts (1998)
. Chain Chain Chain (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2000)
. Plasticville (2000)
. Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2003)
. Tiny Moon Notebook (2007)
. The Late Show (2007)
. By Myself (with D.A. Powell, 2009)

sábado 21 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Dutton


Título: This is Where I Leave You
Autor: Jonathan Tropper
Número de páginas: 352
Editorial: Dutton
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0525951278
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Tropper returns with a snappy and heartfelt family drama/belated coming-of-age story. Judd Foxman's wife, Jen, has left him for his boss, a Howard Stern–like radio personality, but it is the death of his father and the week of sitting shivah with his enjoyably dysfunctional family that motivates him. Jen's announcement of her pregnancy—doubly tragic because of a previous miscarriage—is followed by the dramas of Judd's siblings: his sister, Wendy, is stuck in an emotionless marriage; brother Paul—always Judd's defender—and his wife struggle with infertility; and the charming youngest, Phillip, attempts a grown-up relationship that only highlights his rakishness. Presided over by their mother, a celebrated parenting expert despite her children's difficulties, the mourning period brings each of the family members to unexpected epiphanies about their own lives and each other. The family's interactions are sharp, raw and often laugh-out-loud funny, and Judd's narration is unflinching, occasionally lewd and very keen. Tropper strikes an excellent balance between the family history and its present-day fallout, proving his ability to create touchingly human characters and a deliciously page-turning story."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Plan B (2000)
. The Book of Joe (2004)
. Everything Changes (2005)
. How To Talk To A Widower (2007)

Novedad Oxford University Press


Título: Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
Autor: Benjamin Moser
Número de páginas: 496
Editorial: Oxford University Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0195385564
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "This pioneering biography of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector (1920–1977)—a genius of character as much as a literary magician—captures the luminescent and singular author for an English-speaking audience that may not be familiar with her. She was born Chaya Pinkhasovna in 1921; soon after, her family left pogrom-torn Ukraine, arriving in Brazil in 1922. She became a law student seeking justice for prisoners and then a journalist, and in 1943, around the time of her marriage to a career diplomat, Lispector published her first book, the critically esteemed Near to the Wild Heart. The life of the roving diplomatic wife took its toll on the visionary and strikingly beautiful Lispector, who also had a longtime love for the homosexual poet Lúcio Cardoso among others. One of her sons was diagnosed as schizophrenic, which further fostered Lispector's sense of isolation. Among her champions was Elizabeth Bishop, but Lispector remains under the Anglo-American literary radar. This well-researched biography by Moser, New Books columnist for Harper's, should send readers in search of this indescribable author, whose work in many ways is closer to cabalistic writing than to more contemporary modernists like Woolf, Kafka or Joyce. 37 b&w photos."

viernes 20 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad City Lights Publishers


Título: The Torturer's Wife
Autor: Thomas Glave
Número de páginas: 240
Editorial: City Lights Publishers
Fecha original de publicación: 2008
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0872864665
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Glave's second collection is a disquieting, graphic, semiexperimental compendium examining violence and ignorance in and out of wartime. After opening with a contemporary relationship drama, Glave makes the jarring transition to armed conflicts, invasion and genocide. What most unifies these works is what's left unsaid—secrets are a constant, and there are virtually no names. Glave's style, full of interruptions, ellipses, unconventional text treatments and poemlike breaks, sends each story whirling thickly toward its end: in the title story, a woman called She is haunted by grotesque nightmares of dismembered body parts raining on her house and garden, after discovering her high-ranking husband's wartime atrocities. In the allegorical Milk/Sea; Sentience, the dreams of a sleeping village of women heal war's wounds. Between takes a step back to focus on a couple, telling the story of two racist gay men in an interracial relationship; cleverly, Glave refers to both as one of them. Laced with grisly details, this daring but uneven collection may not find a wide audience, but makes an intriguing experiment in post-postmodern war fiction."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Whose Song? and Other Stories (2000)
. Words to Our Now: Imagination and Dissent (2005)

Leyendo


Título: The Late Show
Autor: David Trinidad
Número de páginas: 96
Editorial: Turtle Point Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2007
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1933527093
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Trinidad's 13th collection is a cinematic recuperation of the more and less significant people, places, encounters and objects that compose the movie of a life. In these loquacious, unfettered and sometimes playful poems, Trinidad painstakingly recalls divas, artists, friends, lovers and his mother. In looking back, the poet couches his memories in pop culture and formal experimentation: his Nature Poem is a clever arrangement of movie titles (How a Tree Grows in Brooklyn/ Autumn Leaves// Lost Horizon/ Gone with the Wind), and Gloss of the Past is an indulgent prose catalogue of pink lip gloss names (Fluffy Moth Pink... Turn Pale Pink). In rambling, accumulative elegies in long lines or prose, a jar of Topaze cream (a yellow jewel embedded in the lid) is one of many relentlessly remembered details that accrue toward simple, moving admissions, such as: I miss my mother. The long closing piece, A Poem Under the Influence, is a confessional and discursive look at the past by an obsessively collecting and recollecting mind that admits: Better to look pinkly through a glass at the tarnished past,/ count my blessings (on both hands), and call it a day. But I have to ask: why..."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Pavane (1981)
. Monday, Monday (1985)
. Living Doll (1986)
. November (1987)
. Three Stories (1988)
. A Taste of Honey (with Bob Flanagan, 1990)
. Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (1991)
. Answer Song (1994)
. Essay with Movable Parts (1998)
. Chain Chain Chain (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2000)
. Plasticville (2000)
. Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2003)
. Tiny Moon Notebook (2007)
. By Myself (with D.A. Powell, 2009)

jueves 19 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Penguin


Título: The Sartorialist
Autor: Scott Schuman
Número de páginas: 512
Editorial: Alfaguara
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1846143045
Sinopsis: (Tomada de us.penguingroup.com) "Scott Schuman just wanted to take photographs of people that he met on the streets of New York who he felt looked great.
His now-famous and much-loved blog, thesartorialist.com, is his showcase for the wonderful and varied sartorial tastes of real people across the globe. This book is a beautiful anthology of Scott’s favorite images, accompanied by his insightful commentary. It includes photographs of well-known fashion figures alongside people encountered on the street whose personal style and taste demand a closer look.
From the streets of New York to the parks of Florence, from Stockholm to Paris, from London to Moscow and Milan, these are the men and women who have inspired Scott and the many diverse and fashionable readers of his blog.
After fifteen years in the fashion business, Scott Schuman felt a growing disconnect between what he saw on the runways and in magazines, and what real people were wearing. The Sartorialist was his attempt to redress the balance. Since its beginning, the blog has become hugely admired and influential in the fashion industry and beyond. Thesartorialist.com is consistently named one of the top blogs in the world. A self-taught photographer, Schuman shoots for publications including French Vogue, American GQ, Fantastic Man and Elle, and a growing list of advertising clients. Scott has also shown his work at the New York photo gallery The Danziger Projects and appeared in the GAP Style Icon campaign in the fall of 2008. He has been named the number one fashion photography trend by American Photo magazine, as well as one of Time magazine’s top 100 design influencers.
"

2009 National Book Award: Fiction


Título: Let the Great World Spin
Autor: Colum McCann
Número de páginas: 368
Editorial: Random House
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1400063734
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "McCann's sweeping new novel hinges on Philippe Petit's illicit 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers. It is the aftermath, in which Petit appears in the courtroom of Judge Solomon Soderberg, that sets events into motion. Solomon, anxious to get to Petit, quickly dispenses with a petty larceny involving mother/daughter hookers Tillie and Jazzlyn Henderson. Jazzlyn is let go, but is killed on the way home in a traffic accident. Also killed is John Corrigan, a priest who was giving her a ride. The other driver, an artist named Blaine, drives away, and the next day his wife, Lara, feeling guilty, tries to check on the victims, leading her to meet John's brother, with whom she'll form an enduring bond. Meanwhile, Solomon's wife, Claire, meets with a group of mothers who have lost sons in Vietnam. One of them, Gloria, lives in the same building where John lived, which is how Claire, taking Gloria home, witnesses a small salvation. McCann's dogged, DeLillo-like ambition to show American magic and dread sometimes comes unfocused—John Corrigan in particular never seems real—but he succeeds in giving us a high-wire performance of style and heart."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Fishing the Sloe-black River (1994)
. Songdogs (1995)
. This Side of Brightness (1997)
. Everything In This Country Must (2000)
. Dancer (2003)
. Zoli (2006)

2009 National Book Award: Poetry


Título: Trascendental Studies: A Trilogy
Autor: Keith Waldrop
Número de páginas: 216
Editorial: University of California Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0520258785
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Waldrop has long been a major force in American avant-garde poetics, and this substantial new volume is big news indeed. Comprising three sequences—each almost a book in itself—plus an epilogue, it is an extended philosophical meditation on what are, broadly, the major themes of all poetry: perception, the imagination, the body, and how the human inner life interacts with the larger world. In mostly short, jagged free verse pieces, Waldrop goes at these lofty concepts head-on in accessible, if cerebral, language. The speaker of the first sequence, itself composed of six sets of lyrics, lists and a longer poem, attempts to prove the claim that I saw... everything/ that was happening on earth and can/ describe the hum of clouds. The second sequence is a set of discrete poems made up of sentence fragments and aborted thoughts that strive toward completion and correspondence: Most suicides/ in May, June, July. Unusual/ heat drives most toward God. A/ cul-de-sac. The last is, again, a set of sets of poems, the most compelling of which, called Carriage—a Transition— pours lyric bursts down the page. The volume concludes with a longer poem called Epilogue: Stone Angels that meditates in a Rilkian mode on cemetery statues, which are/ the opposite of perception: we/ bury our gaze in them. These poems are similarly entrancing."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. A Windmill Near Calvary (1968)
. The Garden of Effort (1975)
. Shipwreck In Haven (1989)
. Hegel's Family (1989)
. The Opposite of Letting the Mind Wander (1990)
. Light While There is Light (1993)
. The Locality Principle (1995)
. Analogies of Escape (1997)
. The Silhouette of the Bridge (Memory Stand-Ins) (1997)
. Stone Angels (1997)
. Well Well Reality (Collaborations with Rosmarie Waldrop) (1998)
. Haunt (2000)
. Semiramis If I Remember (2001)
. The House Seen from Nowhere (2003)
. The Real Subject: queries and Conjectures of Jacob Delafon, with Sample Poems (2005)
. Several Gravities (Siglio, 2009)

Novedad Soft Skull Press


Título: Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys
Editores: David Henry Sterry, R. J. Martin Jr.
Número de páginas: 288
Editorial: Soft Skull Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1593762414
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.alfaguara.com.ar) "The only thing the writers in this book have in common is that they've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccer moms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos, and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to an underrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled and worshipped.
Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of short memoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetry covering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gather pieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributions from art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and men right off the streets, girls participating in the first-ever National Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and Ruth Morgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work, Human Rights, and Migration Conference.
Sex is a billion-dollar industry. Meet the real people who are its flesh and blood.
"

miércoles 18 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Alfaguara


Título: Adán en Edén
Autor: Carlos Fuentes
Número de páginas: 184
Editorial: Alfaguara
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: México
ISBN: 978-9870413622
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.alfaguara.com.ar) "Ciudades perdidas, callampas, villas miseria, favelas, Gorozpevillas: todas son lo mismo. O vives ahí, o eres uno de los culpables de su existencia. Eso lo saben Adán Gorozpe, cínico arribista que pasó de pobretón estudiante a poderoso mandamás gracias a un afortunado braguetazo, y también Adán Góngora, ministro a cargo de la seguridad nacional que ha puesto en marcha una estrategia espeluznante: se alía con los peores criminales y encierra o manda matar a los menos aptos; encarcela inocentes y uno que otro culpable, exhibe a todos y así se gana a la opinión pública como garante de la justicia.
Un día, Góngora le propone a Gorozpe asociarse para elevar su jueguito al más alto nivel: '¿Qué tal si usted y yo, tocayo, apoyamos a un candidato imposible para la primera magistratura del país?'.
Ese candidato, claro, sería Gorozpe, sólo que para ese momento él sabe que debe deshacerse de Góngora, o al menos neutralizarlo. ¿Cómo proceder contra tan formidable adversario? ¿Cómo detener el remolino que arrastra al país hacia la cloaca?
Ciega, irracional, poderosa, la fe sigue ahí. Un Niño Dios con alas postizas empieza a predicar en medio del tráfico de la mayor avenida de la ciudad. La gente lo oye con fervor porque cree, quiere creer, necesita creer…
"
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Los días enmascarados (1954)
. La región más transparente (1958)
. Las buenas conciencias (1959)
. La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962)
. Aura (1962)
. Cantar de ciegos (1964)
. Zona Sagrada (1967)
. Cambio de piel (1967)
. Cumpleaños (1969)
. Todos los gatos son pardos (1970)
. El tuerto es rey (1970)
. Los reinos originarios (1971)
. Terra Nostra (1975)
. La cabeza de la hidra (1978)
. Agua quemada (1983)
. Gringo Viejo (1985)
. Cristóbal Nonato (1987)
. La Campaña (1990)
. Dos educaciones (1991)
. El espejo enterrado (1992)
. Geografía de la novela (1993)
. Los hijos del conquistador (1994)
. La Frontera de Cristal (1995)
. Los años con Laura Díaz (1999)
. Instinto de Inez (2001)
. En esto creo (2002)
. La Silla del Águila (2003)
. Inquieta compañía (2004)
. Contra Bush (2004)
. Los 68 (2005)
. Todas las familias felices (2006)
. La voluntad y la fortuna (2008)

Novedad Semiotext(e)


Título: Mercury Station
Autor: Mark Von Schlegell
Número de páginas: 328
Editorial: Semiotext(e)
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1584350712
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.fantasticfiction.co.uk) "Published by Semiotext(e) in 2005, Mark von Schlegell's debut novel Venusia was hailed in the sci-fi and literary worlds as a 'breathtaking excursion' and 'heady kaleidoscopic trip,' establishing him as an important practitioner of vanguard science fiction. Mercury Station, the second book in Von Schlegell's System Series, continues the journey into a dystopian literary future.
It is 2150. Eddard J. Ryan was born in a laboratory off Luna City, an orphan raised by the Black Rose Army, a radical post-Earth Irish revolutionary movement. But his first bombing went wrong and he's been stuck in a borstal on Mercury for decades. System Space has collapsed and most of human civilization with it, but Eddie Ryan and his fellow prisoners continue to suffer the remote-control domination of the borstal and its condescending central authority, the qompURE MERKUR, programmed to treat them as adolescents.
Yet things could be worse. With little human supervision, the qompURE can be fooled. There's food and whiskey, and best of all, the girl of Eddie Ryan's dreams, his long-time friend and comrade Koré McAllister, is in the same prison. When his old boss, rich and eccentric chrononaut Count Reginald Skaw shows up in orbit with an entire interstation cruiser at his disposal, there's even the possibility of escape ... back in time.
Like
Venusia, Mercury Station tells a compelling story, drawn through a labyrinth of future-history sci-fi, medieval hard fantasy, and cascading samplings of high and low culture. The book is a brilliant literary assault against the singularity of self and its imprisonment in Einsteinian spacetime.
"
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Venusia (2005)

martes 17 de noviembre de 2009

Leónidas Lamborghini (1927-2009)


Algunos títulos notables del autor:
. El saboteador arrepentido (1955)
. Al público (1957)
. Las patas en las fuentes (1965)
. La estatua de la libertad (1967)
. Coplas del Che (1967)
. La canción de Buenos Aires (1968)
. El solicitante descolocado (1971)
. Partitas (1972)
. El Riseñor (1975)
. Episodios (1980)
. Circus (1986)
. Verme y 11 escrituras de Discépolo (1988)
. Odiseo confinado (1992)
. Un amor como pocos (1993)
. Tragedias y parodias (1994)
. Comedieta (1995)
. Las reescrituras (1996)
. La experiencia de la vida (1996)
. El jardín de los poetas (1999)
. Perón en Caracas (1999)
. Personaje en penehouse y otros grotescos (1999)
. Carroña última forma (2001)
. Mirad hacia Domsaar (2003)
. Trento (2003)
. La risa canalla (o la moral del bufón) (2004)
. Encontrados en la basura (2006)
. El jugador, el juego (2007)

Novedad Knopf


Título: The Original of Laura
Autor: Vladimir Nabokov
Número de páginas: 304
Editorial: Knopf
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Rusia/Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0307271891
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "When Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten index cards that made up the rough draft of his final and unfinished novel, The Original of Laura. But Nabokov’s wife, Vera, could not bear to destroy her husband’s last work, and when she died, the fate of the manuscript fell to her son. Dmitri Nabokov, now seventy-five—the Russian novelist’s only surviving heir, and translator of many of his books—has wrestled for three decades with the decision of whether to honor his father’s wish or preserve for posterity the last piece of writing of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. His decision finally to allow publication of the fragmented narrative—dark yet playful, preoccupied with mortality—affords us one last experience of Nabokov’s magnificent creativity, the quintessence of his unparalleled body of work."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Mary (1926)
. King, Queen, Knave (1928)
. The Luzhin Defense or The Defense (1930)
. English translation: The Eye (1930)
. Glory (1932)
. Camera Obscura (1932)
. Despair (1936)
. The Gift (1938)
. Invitation to a Beheading (1938)
. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941)
. Bend Sinister (1947)
. Lolita (1955)
. Pnin (1957)
. Pale Fire (1962)
. Ada or Ardor (1969)
. Transparent Things (1972)
. Look at the Harlequins! (1974)

Leyendo


Título: Plasticville
Autor: David Trinidad
Número de páginas: 101
Editorial: Turtle Point Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2000
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-1885983466
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "Gathering a variety of traditional forms to 'capture the soul of plastic,' Trinidad's ninth collection manages to be at once utterly deadpan and astonishingly fine. Only via Trinidad will Chatty Cathy enter a villanelle, or Garbo's troll collection find itself unveiled in terza rima. Yet Trinidad's high/low playfulness thoroughly displays a smart, sharp art of arrangement--be the subject 'Fat Liz / Bad Anne'; 'Barbie, Ken, Midge, Allan, and Skipper'; Marilyn Monroe's psyche; or 116 lines cribbed from everyone from Matthew Arnold to James Wright. The book masterfully renders the obsessive aspects of popular culture-collectibility, relentless camp, larger-than-life power dynamics-and the odd way they reflect the poignant complexities of making choices. This is plainly evident in the many shorter poems on the vicissitudes of collecting, like 'Accessories' ('comb,/ brush and 'real' mirror') or 'Fortunes' ('You are just beginning to live'), and in 'Essay with Movable Parts,' a long poem that intersperses images of the poet's nascent doll collection with subversively intelligent snapshots from a range of cheesy classics, including Valley of the Dolls and episodes of Gilligan's Island. A second long poem, 'Every Night, Byron' is written from the perspective of the poet's lover's dog, hilariously summoning up The Autobiogrpahy of Alice B. Toklas as if written by Basket: 'David's packages in-/ terested me at first,/ until I realized they/ were full of the same/ old (as Ira calls it)/ 'Barbie Crap' ./ David hemmed and/ hawed: 'When/ words and people/ fail me, I have no/ choice but to take/ refuge in things.' Ira/ didn't buy it; neither/ did I.' This is Trinidad's finest work to date, and readers will do well to take refuge in its shiny, humane splendors, even if doubting the value of disposable culture in and of itself."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Pavane (1981)
. Monday, Monday (1985)

. Living Doll (1986)
. November (1987)
. Three Stories (1988)
. A Taste of Honey (with Bob Flanagan, 1990)
. Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (1991)
. Answer Song (1994)
. Essay with Movable Parts (1998)
. Chain Chain Chain (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2000)
. Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, 2003)
. Tiny Moon Notebook (2007)
. The Late Show (2007)
. By Myself (with D.A. Powell, 2009)

lunes 16 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Houghton Mifflin Harcourt


Título: The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws
Autora: Margaret Drabble
Número de páginas: 368
Editorial: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Reino Unido
ISBN: 978-0547241449
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws is an original and brilliant work. Margaret Drabble weaves her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression. Alongside curious facts and discoveries about jigsaw puzzles — did you know that the 1929 stock market crash was followed by a boom in puzzle sales? — Drabble introduces us to her beloved Auntie Phyl, and describes childhood visits to the house in Long Bennington on the Great North Road, their first trip to London together, the books they read, the jigsaws they completed. She offers penetrating sketches of her parents, her siblings, and her children; she shares her thoughts on the importance of childhood play, on art and writing, on aging and memory. And she does so with her customary intelligence, energy, and wit. This is a memoir like no other."
Otros títulos notables de la autora:
. A Summer Bird Cage (1963)
. The Garrick Year (1964)
. The Millstone (1965)
. Jerusalem the Golden (1967)
. The Waterfall (1969)
. The Needle's Eye (1972)
. The Realms of Gold (1975)
. The Ice Age (1977)
. The Middle Ground (1980)
. Hassan's Tower (1980)
. The Radiant Way (1987)
. A Natural Curiosity (1989)
. The Gates of Ivory (1991)
. The Witch of Exmoor (1996)
. The Peppered Moth (2001)
. The Seven Sisters (2002)
. The Red Queen (2004)
. The Sea Lady (2006)

Leyendo


Título: El resplandor
Colección:
El libro sentimental (Año XXVI, No. 1444)
Director: Raymundo Neri Falcón
Argumento: Elena Rodríguez
Dibujo: Rodolfo Herrera
Portada: María Eugenia Márquez
Número de páginas: 87
Editorial: Nueva Impresora y Editora, S.A. de C.V.
Fecha original de publicación: 2007
País: México
ISBN: n/d
Primeras líneas: "-¿Dios sólo nos manda las pruebas que somos capaces de resistir?
Luz María esperó con impaciencia el nacimiento de su hermanito.
-¿Cuándo lo voy a conocer?
-Pronto. hija.
Después de ocho años Romana sería madre por segunda vez.
-¿Pero cuándo?
Su esposo llegaba de trabajar y alcanzó a oir a la niña.
-¿Qué tanto pregunta?
-Ya sabes, viejo.
-Le corre prisa porque nazca el bebé.
-Es que quiero jugar con él, papá.
Don Gregorio le llevaba veinte años a su esposa.
-Pues no será luego que nazca.
-¿Entonces cuándo?
Sin estudios se ganaba la vida trabajando como carnicero.
-¿Qué le contesto?
-¿Cuándo, mamá?
Romana juraba que se quedaría de muestra a la hora que nació Carmelina.
Sin dinero para un médico o el hospital fue atendida por una vecina.
-¿Qué es, doña?
-Niña, pero...
Sus palabras no la asustaron tanto como su cara desencajada.
-Pero, ¿qué?
-No viene bien.
Con el nacimiento de Carmelina la tristeza llegó a esa casa.
-¡Mi chiquita!
-¿Come, Romana?
Visita indeseable que sería huésped permanente.
-Muy poquito, casi nada.
-¡Pobre criatura!
-Es mi culpa que naciera así, no debí embarazarte.
-Ni tú ni yo somos culpables.
"

domingo 15 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Viking


Título: Glover's Mistake
Autor: Nick Laird
Número de páginas: 256
Editorial: Viking
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0670020973
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "It's hard to like a self-appointed cultural critic, but teacher-by-day, blogger-by-night David Pinner makes it schadenfreude-fun when he turns his loathing scope on his closest friends and then himself in Laird's latest (after Utterly Monkey). David, an oafish 35-year-old Londoner, reunites with Ruth Marks, the gorgeous and famous 47-year-old American artist who briefly taught him (and promptly forgot him) in college. David falls for her while she's in town for an artist-in-residence program, but Ruth prefers David's bartending flatmate, Glover, a 23-year-old virgin grappling with faith and the father he's left behind. Though David succinctly lambastes the very idea of love (Information killed it), he plots to wedge himself between Glover and Ruth—sometimes with an epically intense dishonesty. Whether David is saving his sometimes overwhelmingly flawed friends from a tragic error or making one himself—or both—the book offers a bit of twisted redemption in its hilarious nod to selfishness of all stripes."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Utterly Monkey (2005)
. To a Fault (2005)
. On Purpose (2007)

Novedad Pantheon


Título: A. D. New Orleans After the Deluge
Autor: Josh Neufeld
Número de páginas: 208
Editorial: Pantheon
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0307378149
Sinopsis: (Tomada de Publishers Weekly) "American Splendor artist Neufeld beautifully depicts the lives of seven New Orleans residents who survived Hurricane Katrina. In the dialogue-free opening chapter, The Storm, Neufeld powerfully intersperses images of the hurricane gathering speed with the cities it crippled when it hit Louisiana on August 29, 2005, specifically New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. Readers are then introduced to seven New Orleans residents, from all walks of life and parts of the city. Denise and her family—mother Louise, niece Cydney and Cydney's daughter, R'nae—join thousands of hungry and thirsty New Orleanians waiting to be evacuated after their apartment is destroyed. Leo, the publisher of a local music zine, and Michelle, a waitress, reluctantly leave the city for Houston and are devastated when their apartment (and Leo's impressive comics collection) is flooded. Other characters flee, or try unsuccessfully to ride out the storm. Neufeld's low-key art brings a deeply humanizing element to the story. Though the devastation caused by the hurricane and the government's lackluster response are staggering, Neufeld expertly underscores the resilience of the people who returned to rebuild their lives and their city."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Keyhole with cartoonist Dean Haspiel 1-4 (1996); 5-6 (1997)
. Titans of Finance #1 with writer R. Walker (2001)
. The Vagabonds 1-2 (2003)
. Few Perfect Hours (2004)

Leyendo


Título: Los materiales
Autor: Hugo García Manríquez
Número de páginas: 80
Editorial: FETA
Fecha original de publicación: 2008
País: México
ISBN: 978-9703513980
Sinopsis: (Tomada de la contraportada) "En Los materiales, Hugo García Manríquez discurre y reflexiona en torno a los últimos significados del lenguaje y su representación, para ofrecernos una sorpresa cotidiana y contundente. Se trata de una exploración en que las emociones toman la forma del documento que las soporta y los argumentos nos relatan cómo el registro lingüístico falla y construye significados en su intento de asimilar la realidad pues 'el mapa abunda pero no es territorio'. Esta obra es una traducción en que el poeta persiste y transita de la cualidad matérica de las palabras a la literalidad radical de las comillas tipográficas y el arte, como en el homenaje que ofrece al pintor Martín Ramírez y a la admirable trayectoria de la línea controlada."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. No oscuro todavía (2005)

sábado 14 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Poligrafa


Título: Marcel Duchamp: Works, Writings, Interviews
Autores: Gloria Moure, Marcel Duchamp
Número de páginas: 160
Editorial: Poligrafa
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos / Francia
ISBN: 978-8434311985
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "By his own testimony, Marcel Duchamp considered painting a 'means of expression, not an end in itself. One means of expression among others, and not a complete end for life at all.' His legendary 'Large Glass,' for example, can be seen as simply the culmination or sum of numerous experiments conducted over an eight-year period. For this reason, every aspect of his oeuvre--painting, installation, writing, interviews--is of potentially equivalent interest, and any Duchamp primer needs to present his more ephemeral contributions, in aphorisms, diagrams and conversation, alongside his visual experiments. Works, Writings, Interviews does this job splendidly, exploring the artist's many-faceted activities, analyzing his work as an entirety and gathering his key interviews and writings."

Novedad Ballantine Books


Título: Await Your Reply
Autor: Dan Chaon
Número de páginas: 324
Editorial: Ballantine Books
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0345476029
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "Three disparate characters and their oddly interlocking lives propel this intricate novel about lost souls and hidden identities from National Book Award–finalist Chaon (You Remind Me of Me). Eighteen-year-old Lucy Lattimore, her parents dead, flees her stifling hometown with charismatic high school teacher George Orson, soon to find herself enmeshed in a dangerous embezzling scheme. Meanwhile, Miles Chesire is searching for his unstable twin brother, Hayden, a man with many personas who's been missing for 10 years and is possibly responsible for the house fire that killed their mother. Ryan Schuyler is running identity-theft scams for his birth father, Jay Kozelek, after dropping out of college to reconnect with him, dazed and confused after learning he was raised thinking his father was his uncle. Chaon deftly intertwines a trio of story lines, showcasing his characters' individuality by threading subtle connections between and among them with effortless finesse, all the while invoking the complexities of what's real and what's fake with mesmerizing brilliance. This novel's structure echoes that of his well-received debut—also a book of threes—even as it bests that book's elegant prose, haunting plot and knockout literary excellence."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Fitting Ends (1996)
. Among the Missing (2001)
. You Remind Me Of Me (2004)

viernes 13 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Tin House


Título: Erased
Autor: Jim Krusoe
Número de páginas: 216
Editorial: Tin House
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0980243673
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "When Theodore receives a postcard saying 'I need to see you,' he initially ignores it — after all, it’s unsettling to open mail from one’s dead mother. But when another card arrives he can no longer put off the urgent meeting, and so Theodore treks to Cleveland to track his mother down. In this strange, thoughtful novel by Jim Krusoe, Theodore travels through the worlds of Uleene, a member of the all-girl biker club Satan’s Samaritans; art; rodent extermination; and sport fishing, all the while realizing that the line between life and death is remarkably fluid."
Otros títulos notables del autor:
. Blood Lake and Other Stories (1999)
. Iceland (2002)
. Girl Factory (2008)

Leyendo


Título: Crush
Autor: Richard Siken
Número de páginas: 80
Editorial: Yale University Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2005
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0300107210
Sinopsis: (Tomada de yalepress.yale.edu) "Richard Siken’s Crush, selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful collection of poems driven by obsession. Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism.
In her introduction to the book, competition judge Louise Glück hails the 'cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power, [and] purgatorial recklessness' of Siken’s poems. She notes, 'Books of this kind dream big. . . . They restore to poetry that sense of crucial moment and crucial utterance which may indeed be the great genius of the form.'
"

jueves 12 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad MoMA


Título: In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976
Autores: Phillip van den Bossche, Cathleen Chaffee, Christophe Cherix
Número de páginas: 178
Editorial: MoMA
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0870707537
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "During the 1960s and 70s, Amsterdam was a nexus of intense art activities, drawing artists from all over the world, including Stanley Brouwn, Gilbert & George, Sol LeWitt, Charlotte Posenenske, Allen Ruppersberg and Lawrence Weiner. Reciprocally, some of the most influential Dutch artists traveled abroad extensively before establishing themselves in Amsterdam: Jan Dibbets studied in London, while Ger van Elk and Bas Jan Ader trained in Los Angeles. As a result of this new mobility, a dynamic cross-pollination of ideas and influences took place between artists of different nationalities, and many produced works directly related to the notion of travel and the city that fostered them. In & Out of Amsterdam presents more than 120 works--including works on paper, installations, photographs and films--by artists who were part of this remarkable creative culture. Essays, accompanied by lively illustrations and documentary photographs, illuminate the significance of these works as well as the unprecedented role that prints, bulletins, posters, mail art, artists' books and ephemera played in the artists' discourse. A brief essay or interview introduces each artist, and an extensive chronology, bibliography and illustrated checklist round out this unique volume."

miércoles 11 de noviembre de 2009

Novedad Yale University Press


Título: Sol LeWitt: 100 Views
Editores: Susan Cross, Denise Markonish
Número de páginas: 272
Editorial: Yale University Press
Fecha original de publicación: 2009
País: Estados Unidos
ISBN: 978-0300152821
Sinopsis: (Tomada de www.amazon.com) "Published to accompany MASS MoCA’s landmark installation of LeWitt’s innovative wall drawings, this book celebrates the artist and his illustrious 50-year career."