A number of Consortium Titles were named Best Children’s Books of the Year by Bank Street College Education, includingComics: Easy as ABC!by Ivan Brunetti (Toon Graphics/Toon Books), Ants Don’t Wear Pants! by Kevin McCloskey (Toon Books), Aribaby Masha Manapov (Enchanted Lion Books), Layla’s Happiness by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin (Enchanted Lion Books), Noodlephant by Jacob Kramer, illustrated by K-Fai Steele (Enchanted Lion Books), Up Down Inside Out by JooHee Yoon (Enchanted Lion Books), Troublemaker for Justice by Jacqueline Houtman, Walter Naegle, Michael G. Long (City Light Publishers), The Little Black Fish by Samad Behrangi, illustrated by Farshid Mesghali, translated by Azita Rassi (Tiny Owl Publishing), When I Colored in the World by Ahmadreza Ahmadi, illustrated by Ehsan Abdollahi, translated by Azita Rassi (Tiny Owl Publishing), Grobblechops by Elizabeth Laird, illustrated by Jenny Lucander (Tiny Owl Publishing), and Thukpa for All by Praba Ram and Sheela Preuitt, illustrated by Shilpa Ranade (Karadi Tales).
The Millions’ Longlist for the Best Translated Book Award included Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken (World Editions), Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, translated Sara Moses and Carolina Orloff (Charco Press), Tentacle by Rita Indiana, translated by Achy Obejas (And Other Stories), 77 by Guillermo Saccomanno, translated by Andrea G. Labinger (Open Letter Books), Time by Etel Adnan, translated by Sarah Riggs (Nightboat Books), Aviva-No by Shimon Adaf, translated by Yael Segalovitz (Alice James Books), and Next Loves by Stéphane Bouquet, translated by Lindsay Turner (Nightboat Books).
White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia Kiki Petrosino | Sarabande Books | 9781946448545 | May 2020 “The result of deep historical research, impressive formal dexterity, and savvy storytelling, this volume of poetry combines genealogy, history, and verse in a way that reflects many American experiences.”—Foreword Reviews
Toxicon and Arachne Joyelle McSweeney | Nightboat Books | 9781643620183 | April 2020 “Arachne subverts and elaborates upon Toxicon. Toxicon sharpens the cuts of Arachne. With these two texts—this book, Toxicon and Arachne—Joyelle McSweeney has created a work of incredible honesty, exploring suffering and trauma through the lens of the necropastoral. This landscape of moss and bugs and dilapidation.”—Empty Mirror
SLINGSHOT Cyrée Jarelle Johnson | NIghtboat Books | 9781643620091 | September 2019 “A beautifully complex poetry collection, Johnson is defiantly sharp and humorous, with lines clearly from a technician. Themes include Black lives and organizing, disability, queerness, sex work, and societal devastation and care to name a few. If you want a book that flips formalism and confounds, Slingshot is a stunning addition to your self-isolation reading life.”—them
Above Us the Milky Way Fowzia Karmi | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781646050024 | April 2020 “It is Fowzia Karimi the artist we shall remember after reading the book as much as Fowzia Karimi and her family, the exiles and victims of war. This is a wonderful book.”—The Modern Novel
Girls Lost Jessica Schiefauer, trans. Saskia Vogel | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920954 | March 2020 “A dark exploration of magic and gender.”—Community of Literary Magazines and Presses
People Magazine recommended Joan Frank’s Where You’re All Going(Sarabande Books) as a new title to read this month.
Val Walker, author of 400 Friends and No One To Call, chatted with Parade Magazine about how to stay social in the age of social distancing on March 21. Walker was also interviewed for an article on AARP.org on March 23.
Margo Jefferson recommended Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Olio (Wave Books) in the New York Timeson March 19. The Times Book Reviewalso recommended A Long Way Offby Pascal Garnier (Gallic Books) on March 20.
We Had No Rules Corinne Manning | Arsenal Pulp Press | 9781551527994 | May 2020 “Wistful, funny, angry, bitter, raw—Manning both shocks and enthralls.”—Booklist, starred review
Temporary Hilary Leichter | Coffee House Press | 9781566895668 | March 2020 “The near-farcical chaos of the gig economy is explored in this story of a young woman’s journey through a series of increasingly wild job placements, from shining shoes to swabbing the deck of a pirate ship.”—Vogue
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing… And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive Zora Neale Hurston, edit. Alice Walker | The Feminist Press at CUNY | 9781936932733 | January 2020 “Hurston was the ultimate independent woman and one of the greatest writers who ever touched a pen. This collection was the first Hurston reader, edited by Walker and published in the 1970s . . . . While much of her work is very much about community, it, like her, in many ways stands alone.”—Seattle Times
Growing Up Below Sea Level: A Kibbutz Childhood Rachel Biale | Mandel Vilar Press | 9781942134633 | April 2020 “Rachel Biale’s fresh and vivid stories of her kibbutz childhood, raised in the biblical landscape of the Jordan River by European-born parents and community who had barely fled the Nazis, are pulsating with love and unblinking insight into the early kibbutz life. I read these stories with amazement and deep personal recognition. Literature is still the best path to grasping the heart Israel, and these stories touch on a pivotal moment in the young country’s history, geography, and social dreams.”—San Diego Jewish Review
Wage Slaves
Daria Bogdanska, trans. Hanna Strömberg | Conundrum International | 9781772620368
| May 2019 “In
Wage Slaves, Bogdanska captures how distressing it can be to search for
a new job, especially in a new country. This is definitely an important read if
either of these have ever been applicable to you, but also imperative for those
who have no relation to them; as a reminder of this privilege, and a step
inside how bad things can be for others.”—Broken Frontier
Bigfoot
Baby
Elias Barks, illus. Meg Hunt | Hazy Dell Press | 9781948931083 | April 2020 “From
the Hazy Dell Flap Book series of innovative lift-the-flap adventures comes a
new monster to explore with: a pintsized sasquatch. Durable, chunky pages and
insets guarantee endless no-tear fun for small hands and inquisitive minds.
Look around the forest for Bigfoot Baby, running wild through the trees,
playing with bears, or reading in a camper’s tent, adorably furry and with one
pointy tooth. Fairies, mushroom houses, and cheerful rhymes complete the
multisensory experience.”—Foreword Reviews
The Joy
of Movement
Mary Lynn Hafner | Redleaf Press | 9781605546421 | January 2019 “A
practical manual filled with ready-to-use lesson plans that are both
developmentally designed and respectful of the maxim that learning is fun. . .
This gem of a book is surely useful in a preschool classroom. It may also be
just the tool for energizing and motivating teachers who are ready to discover
the joy of movement for themselves.”—Texas Child Care Monthly
Building Structures with Young Children
Ingrid Chalufour and Karen Worth | Redleaf Press | 9781929610501 | 2004 “Building Structures guides teachers with concrete and
practical tips in the transition from open exploration of blocks—size, shape,
and balance—to purposeful and focused explorations that produce an authentic
understanding of how structures work. Most valuable, especially for teachers
unfamiliar with the opportunities that block play offers, is a chapter devoted
to getting ready—putting on a scientist mindset, building a teaching plan, and
preparing the environment. . . This book has earned its place in your program’s
library and regular attention in teacher development workshops.”—Texas
Child Care Quarterly
Girls
Lost
Jessica Schiefauer, trans. Saskia Vogel | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920954
| March 202 “While
its plot is relatively easy to summarize—three teenagers discover that a
mysterious plant can change them from boys to girls—Jessica Schiefauer’s Girls
Lost doesn’t avoid the complexities that could arise from such a scenario.
The ways in which desire and identity converge within the pages of this book have
the power to haunt, even as the narrative moves forward at a rapid pace. It’s a
page-turner that lingers.”—Words Without Borders
Seven
Samurai Swept Away in a River
Jung Young Moon, trans. Yewon Jung | Deep Vellum Publishing | 9781941920855 |
December 2019 “Ridiculous in the best way.”—D Magazine
Temporary
Hilary Leichter | Coffee House Press | 9781566895668 | March 2020 “At a time when pop culture abounds with
incisive takes on people’s relationship to their jobs — from Rob Hart’s
dystopian The Warehouse to Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed film Parasite—Leichter’s
novel finds space for both intimacy and expansiveness. It’s like little else
you’ll read, but its emotional resonance is all too familiar.”—Star Tribune
The Book of
Anna
Carmen Boullosa, trans. Samantha Schnee | Coffee House Press | 9781566895774 |
April 2020 “Threads
characters from Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece into an innovative narrative caper
that blends history, fiction, and fairytale. . . . The sheer innovation of
Boullosa’s multi-layered narrative presents the reader with a nesting doll of
fictions and histories—threads that intertwine questions of self-hood, artistic
creation, and the many-layered voices of political change. The Book of Anna
marks the rare achievement of a writer who balances the weight of Tolstoy’s
complicated genius with her own interpretation of events, real and fictitious,
with unmitigated brio and a touch of mischievous whimsy. It will surely become
a modern classic.”—Paperback Paris
The “bold and energetic” debut novel by Juli Delgado Lopera, Fiebre Tropical, was an NYTBREditor’s Choice on March 12. Reviewer Dwight Garner complimented the “ebullient and assertive” prose in his review on March 2. Check out the excerpt shared by the Rumpuson February 17, and see what Lopera talked about in an interview with the NYTBRon March 18.
Several award shortlists were announced this week and we were pleased to see many Consortium publishers represented. Socialist Realismby Trisha Low and Soft Targetsby Deborah Landau both won Believer Book Awards on March 16, and books from Coffee House Press and Alice James Books were finalists. Titles from Bellevue Literary Press and Deep Vellum Publishing were named finalists for the Big Other Translation Prize, and winners will be announced May 16. The finalists for the Publishing Triangle Awards were also announced, which included titles from Alice James Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, BOA Editions, and Nightboat Books. Stay tuned for the award ceremony April 30.
Hilary Leichter’s Temporarycontinues to snatch up press attention. Leichter was interviewed by the NYTBRon March 18. The Wall Street Journal had high praise for this “delirious and deeply humane satire” of the gig economy on March 13. Guernica also recommended the title on the 13, calling it “delirious” and “dizzying.” Literary Hub included it on their new books to read this month list on March 3. Publishers Weekly included it on a roundup of new titles, along with John Elizabeth Stintzi’s Vanishing Monuments, on March 17. Finally, Buzzfeedrecommended the title, along with Karen Tei Yamashita’s Sansei and Sensibility, in a roundup of the best new releases on March 12.
Founded in 1985 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and now based in Minneapolis, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution is a full-service distributor that works with more than 125 celebrated independent publishers across the globe. The Bookslinger is our archive, updated weekly, of just some of the recent accomplishments of our publishers.
