New Directions, with Mark Haber

Hello friends! Trevor here with our latest newsletter to accompany our latest episode! Because this newsletter has a lot, here is a little TOC: today’s episode, THREE giveaways, the summer book club dates, upcoming schedule, the new Patreon bonus episode, and a special conversation taking place TONIGHT (June 30), and the shownotes for today’s episode.

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Today’s episode

Paul and I are returning to one of our pet topics: favorite publishers! Hopefully you’ve heard our episodes on NYRB Classics and Archipelago Books. This time we are focused on New Directions, and we are delighted that Mark Haber is along for the ride!

New Directions was started in 1936 by the legendary publisher James Laughton. Their backlist of titles is formidable and an absolute delight to peruse. They publish a broad mix of international and U.S. fiction and poetry. Mark Haber has been a fan for many years, and he wrote a great essay about his love for New Directions. Check it out!

THREE Giveaways

New Directions is sponsoring THREE—that’s right THREE—giveaways this week! That means we will select three winners (U.S. only, I’m afraid, cursed international shipping rates!).

• One winner will win a year’s subscription to their New Classics Club (that’s one book a month, selected by the New Directions editors).

• Another will win a copy of their latest release, Alhierd Bacharevič’s Alindarka’s Children, translated from the Belarusian by Petra Reid and Jim Dingley.

• And another will win a book Mark Haber chose: Mathias Énard’s Compass, translated by Charlotte Mandell.

To enter you must send an email to mookseandgripes@gmail.com, subject line: “New Directions Giveaway,” that fulfills the following criteria:

1. Look at the New Directions backlist, pick a book that you love, and tell us what it is and why you chose it. In the alternative, if this is the first time you’re exploring the New Directions backlist, please look over the backlist and let us know which books most intrigues you and why. Click here to see their extensive list of books.

2. Look at the upcoming releases from New Directions, pick one that most intrigues you, and tell us what it is and why. Click here to go to their new and forthcoming releases page.

Each email will count as one entry into all three drawings. We will choose the winners on the morning of Saturday, July 9. Again, this is limited to U.S. addresses.

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About Mark Haber

Mark Haber is the author of the 2008 story collection Deathbed Conversions and the novels Reinhardt’s Garden, longlisted for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway Award, and the recently published Saint Sebastian’s Abyss. He is the operations manager at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas. His nonfiction has appeared in the Rumpus, Music & Literature, and LitHub. His fiction has appeared in Southwest Review and Air/Light.

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The Summer Book Club: A Lost Lady

We know when we will be talking about Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady. Paul and I will be recording our episode about it on Saturday, August 6, with the episode going up on Thursday, August 11. Consequently, we’ll be reading it toward the end of July. I hope you can join in and share your thoughts as you do so!

We’re trying to think of ways to make this more interactive (maybe with a suitable hashtag), so if you have any ideas, please share them!

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Upcoming Schedule

• July 14: Authors Everyone Loves But Me

• July 28: Books About Growing Old

• August 11: Summer Book Club—Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady

• August 25: Author focus on Stephen King

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Patreon Bonus Episode

Last week we released June’s Patreon bonus episode. In it, Paul and I play a game of Book Shelf Roulette, which we learned from two of our favorite podcasts: Literary Disco and The Readers. We got random numbers from folks on Twitter and then used them to get random books from our shelves to discuss. It was filled with serendipity!

Bonus episodes are available for Patreon supporters of all levels right when you sign up. Patreon supporters also get all of our episodes a few days early.

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Virtual Event TONIGHT!

Tonight—that’s Thursday, June 30—Paul and I are going to be joining translator Tess Lewis for a virtual event hosted by The Odyssey Bookshop: Celebrating Archipelago Books. This starts at 7:00 Eastern. We are thrilled to have been invited to participate in the celebration!

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Episode 31 Shownotes

• Deathbed Conversions, by Mark Haber

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, by Mark Haber

• Spadework for a Palace, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by John Batki

• A Horse at Night, by Amina Cain

• The Famous Magician, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews

• The Manhattan Project, by László Krasznahorkai and Ornan Rotem, translated by John Batki

• The Book of Uncomformities: Speculations on Lost Time, by Hugh Raffles

• Scattered All Over the Earth, by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani

• A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather

• The Melancholy of Resistance, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• Alinkdarka’s Children, by Alhierd Bacharevič, translated by Petra Reid and Jim Dingley

• Compass, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Death on the Installment Plan, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, translated by Ralph Manheim

• Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, translated by Ralph Manheim

• Hawthorn & Child, by Keith Ridgway

• Never Love a Gambler, by Keith Ridgway

• A Shock, by Keith Ridgway

• Ghosts, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews

• An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews

• The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt

• Lightning Rods, by Helen DeWitt

• The English Understand Wool, by Helen DeWitt

• The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser

• The Complete Stories: Fiction by Clarice Lispector, translated by Katrina Dodson

• Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl, by Gert Hofmann, translated by Michael Hofmann

• Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

• Paradais, by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

• The End of Days, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Visitation, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• The Book of Words, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Go, Went, Gone, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• The Meadow, by Tim Galvin

• The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Not a Novel: A Memoir in Pieces, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Kurt Beals

• The Old Child and Other Stories, by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Bartleby & Co., by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Jonathan Dunne

• Never Any End to Paris, by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Anne McLean

• Dublinesque, by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Anne McLean and Rosalind Harvey

• Vampires in Love, by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• The Illogic of Kassel, by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Anne McLean and Anna Milsom

• Because She Never Asked, by Enrique Vila-Matas

• Mac’s Problem, by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes

• Everything and Nothing, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Donald Yates

• The Night Before Christmas, by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Constance Garnett

• Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico, by Javier Marías, translated by Esther Allen

• An Inventory of Losses, by Judith Schalansky, translated by Jackie Smith

• In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale

• Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• The Unfortunates, by B.S. Johnson

• Nox, by Anne Carson

• Microscripts, by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Envelope Poems, by Emily Dickinson

• The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• The Employees, by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken

• Lucky Breaks, by Yevgenia Belorusets, translated by Eugene Ostashevsky

• Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• Armand V, by Dag Solstad, translated by Steven T. Murray

• Novel 11, Book 18, by Dag Solstad, translated by Sverre Lyngstad

• Professor Andersen’s Night, by Dag Solstad, translated by Agnes Scott Langeland

• T Singer, by Dag Solstad, translated by Tiina Nunnally

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About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every few weeks we are talking about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher. You can also listen to us on YouTube, if that’s your thing (though I’m still trying to figure that out, so be patient if there are some strange uploads and re-uploads).

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, please visit our Patreon page. We have been reworking the Patreon, and I’m excited that I figured out how to get Patreon subscribers early access to our episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. We are also working on bonus episodes for certain tiers, since we really want to show our thanks. Please go check it out!