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Millions 2016 book list is out! Anything anyone is particularly excited about?

http://www.themillions.com/2016/01/mo...

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2015 brings many new books and golden old ones to everyone.

I feel like there needs to be a group that each year is dedicated to reading through the entire canonical works of a chosen country. Does such a mysterious entity exist, fellow GR friends?

https://33.media.tumblr.com/ae3a0aaa7...

Day 2, EBF - Karl Ove Knausgaard is just as you would expect him to be: rugged, tall, somewhat neurotic, shy and very contemplative. His 'My Struggle' is an experiment in how far can one go without a plot before a 'novel' becomes unreadable. When asked about his astounding detail for memory, he admits that his dialogues are mostly invented; he only has a good memory for landscapes and rooms. Not a fan of Franzen.

Day 1, Edinburgh Book Festival - Met Xiaolu Guo, a fiercely intelligent author who cites Duras, Genet, Sartre, Vian, Barthes, Calvino, Nabokov and the Beat Generation as her Western inspirations. Fascinating talk about national identities, translation, whether art [especially Chinese art] should be political, and the intellectual loneliness and prejudices when she first moved to London.

Who do you think is the best living American novelist writing today? I need to find a way to get back into contemporary American letters, and recommendations would be very much appreciated.

Back home and this sums up all of my feelings: http://i.imgur.com/ySDkC87.gif

Made it onto the Guardian's Book page with a particularly sassy comment about the Booker prize. Waiting for my invitation to join the Swedish Academy now.

Too early to speculate on the Nobel? Wake me up in October, please.

Too early to speculate about the Nobel?

Did you know Pamuk means 'castle' in Turkish? Castles are nice; the 'cotton-castles' in Pammukkale are quite beautiful too. Google them. That's about it for literary news on my side. Aren't you so glad we are GR friends?

Pros of holidaying: tan; the food; reciting Yeats' Byzantium poems.

Cons of holidaying: too much tan; too much food; not enough time to read leading to GR death.

Life is a cruel mistress.

Going to have to take a pause on my currently reading as I travel with new books. Does anyone have any particular recommendations on Turkish literature? I've brought some Pamuk and Şafak for the trip...

No idea what clothes to bring to Turkey in a few days, but I've got all my books packed. Priorities, right?

'Underneath his make-up, that face like a beloved face known long ago, and lost, and now returned, although I never knew him before, although he is a stranger, still that face which I have always loved before I ever saw it so that to see him is to remember, although I do not know who it is I then remember, except it might be the vague imaginary face of desire.'

'Michael doesn't hear. He is such a wankstain.'

Being stressed by Goodreads being over capacity, and then wondering if I lead too much of a sheltered life...