Bookbabble Episode 57: 2009’s Great and Not So Great Reads

Dec 24, 2009 by donny

Bookbabble Episode 57: 2009’s Great and Not So Great Reads

Recorded 14 Dec 2009
Babblers: Bjorn, Renee, Marcel, Donny

Synopsis:

The group discusses their best reads of the year, plus some not-so-great reads as well.  Also, what books best defined the past decade, given all that has happened in the past 10 years?  Plus, Renee treats us to a wonderful rendition of bad sex prose, courtesy of this year’s winner of Literary Review’s 2009 bad sex in fiction award.

Show Length: 1:41:42 mins

Mentioned

• The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell
• Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, Marcel Proust
• My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl
• Doctor Glas, Hjalmar Söderberg
• Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
• Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse
• 2666, Roberto Bolaño
• Atemschaukel, Herta Müller
• The Land of Green Plums, Herta Müller
• The Passport, Herta Müller
• Landscape Painted with Tea, Milorad Pavic
• Song of Lawino & Song of Okol, Okot p’Bitek
• Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
• The Restless Supermarket, Ivan Vladislavic
• Reine Pokou, Véronique Tadjo
• Sleepwalking Land, Mia Couto
• Leo Africanus, Amin Maalouf
• Replay, Ken Grimwood
• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
• Naked, David Sedaris
• The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• The Death of Bunny Munro, Nick Cave
• The Walking Dead Vol1: The Days Gone By, Robert Kirkman
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
• No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
• The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perotta
• Left Behind, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
• Against The Day, Thomas Pynchon
• The collector of worlds, Ilya Troyanov
• When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger
• Colson Whitehead

Links

• Bad sex award goes to Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (Literary Review)
• Véronique Tadjo
• “Den danske oversættelse af Atemschaukel udkommer på Gyldendal medio 2010.”
• Bjorn’s Review of Tom Perotta’s The Abstinence Teacher (forum)
• Shigekuni: Field Work: Ilija Trojanow’s “Der Weltensammler”
• Shigekuni: Gotham City: Colson Whitehead’s ”The Intuitionist”
• Shigekuni: Rotter: Colson Whitehead’s “Apex Hides The Hurt”

[audio:http://m.podshow.com/media/17719/episodes/205081/bookbabbletheshow-205081-12-23-2009.mp3]

Download the show here.

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