Spun Purple Mountains earlier today, forever in awe of Berman’s turns of phrase. And also happened to think about Ryan and some of his Berman stories. If I were in New York this weekend, I would not miss this.

This huge Europa hit, a Deep Vellum book making Obama's book list...I can't help feeling like publishing's woes could open up an opportunity for readers to understand that independent press books (by US authors and in translation) are not only vital literature but also...as good, as big 5 books?

Today's Featured Poem: "Preparing the Body" by Monika Herceg, translated from the Croatian by @marinaveverec.bsky.social from Closed Season published by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social Read here: poems.com/poem/prepari...

Monika Herceg’s “Preparing the Body” from Closed Season (tr. Marina Veverec) is featured @poetrydaily.bsky.social today. poems.com/poem/prepari...

@gayadorno.bsky.social on translating Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories in a new Asymptote interview: “One thing that did feel joyful or exciting about doing this project was getting an opportunity to think of myself more as a writer.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/12...

Good luck to @sandorfpassage.bsky.social !

2025 has been awful, but our six releases this year are evidence that books still surprise and delight, and are more necessary than ever. We’re so proud of these books and are thankful for the teams behind them. 2026 promises more great fiction and poetry, starting with She Who Remains. #booksky

More end-of-year love for Underground Barbie. @libraryjournal.bsky.social includes it in “Stellar Selections: Best Books of 2025”! www.libraryjournal.com/story/Stella...

This week @buzzpoole.bsky.social, cofounder of @sandorfpassage.bsky.social and the person most responsible for Mike's first book being published in a defensible state, visited the library for a discussion of publishing literature in translation and more. Listen anywhere that pods are known to pod.

Translators are alchemists, conjuring meaning and beauty from one language into another. @littranslate.bsky.social’s sole purpose is to support and advocate for translators. If you can, help them help translators by making a donation. Maybe you’ll even win a virtual meeting with me . . .

In the words of Sun Ra: Space is the place! And for those of you in the Portland, Maine, area, the mighty @spacegallery.bsky.social Pop-Up Shop opens tonight. Shop local and get some locally published books, along with all manner of creative gifts.

Yesterday, I read about $100,000 worth of escargot being stolen in France, today, it’s an oyster heist here in #maine. www.pressherald.com/2025/12/04/u...

Like a map that unfolds & unfolds until it is larger than the territory, this odd and oddly delightful little book will beguile you with the beauty of its prose, the agility of images, and the joy it clearly shows in the art of literature

As a Charles Burchfield freak and a @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social fanatic, I might be one of the few folks who notices that Burchfield’s work is about to appear on a second cover, albeit about 11 years after the first one appeared.

So great to see Jonathan Reeder’s spectacular translation of Donald Niedekker’s Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost on this @speculativeshelf.bsky.social Top 10 Books of 2025 list! speculativeshelf.com/2025/12/02/t...

Translator Jonathan Reeder muses on the first sentence of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost—the longest first sentence he’s ever translated—for the wonderful Dutch Athenaeum bookstores. athenaeumscheltema.nl/vertalers/20...

“To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” Hilary Ilkay on @gayadorno.bsky.social’s translation of The Competition of Unfinished Stories. www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...

Asymptote chews on The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social): “To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, [Sener] Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...

@tobiascarroll.bsky.social includes Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social) on the @wwborders.bsky.social November Watchlist! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

The UN General Assembly has designated today, November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Monika Herceg’s Closed Season is a clarion call to not look away from or ignore the suffering of women throughout the world.

Last week’s Monika Herceg events in support of Closed Season were a delight: inspiring, challenging, surprising, and beautiful. Get a taste by watching this video from @brooklinebooksmith.bsky.social. m.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6d...

RIP Jimmy Cliff. m.youtube.com/watch?v=ISuH...

Huzzah! Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost is a @washingtonpost.com 2025 notable work of fiction! Thanks to @themountaingoats.bsky.social @portersqbooks.bsky.social @bseitz.bsky.social @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social @jamesfolta.com for championing this book from the jump!

Well look at that, Jonathan Reeder’s translation of Donald Niedekker’s Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost is one of this year’s most notable novels! “Niedekker presents us with a mosaic that is a pure delight on the page, packed full of sly jokes and inventive surprises.”

NYC: Monika Herceg is a force and tonight she will be joined by Underground Barbie author Maša Kolanović at the gallery Brief Histories in Manhattan. You don’t want to miss this.

In the Portland, #Maine, area? Want to spend your Monday evening basking in poetry? Then get yourself to Lambs in South Portland tomorrow, November 17. This is a special opportunity to hear Monika Herceg read her exceptional work.

“Hard to categorize” from Sandorf Passage is an instant to-read marker

Boston: You have two chances to hear Monika Herceg read from and discuss Closed Season, a fusion of physics and politics that conjures righteously angry and alarmingly memorable work. See her at BU this evening, starting at 5:15, and tomorrow at Brookline Booksmith, starting at 7:00 PM.

Hard to categorize, impossible to forget, Dinko Telećan’s The Book of Visits engages with the world apace with the comings and goings of nature, those we love, and those we will never know. Discover this Croatian poet in April.

Ahead of the Closed Season events @brooklinebooksmith.bsky.social and Lambs in Maine, @ninamaclaughlin.bsky.social chews on the new collection: “Monika Herceg writes with a controlled ferocity, alert to the sick ironies and absurdities of this world.” ninamaclaughlin.substack.com/p/poetry-of-...

Boston, South Portland, New York: prepare for Monika Herceg’s forthcoming appearances by reading the title poem from her latest collection to appear in English @lithub.com.web.brid.gy. And then join us on November 13, 14, 17, and 18. lithub.com/closed-seaso...

Today’s to-do list: 1. VOTE, 2. Get yourself a copy of Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories, translated by @gayadorno.bsky.social. It’s an unforgettable, wild ride! sandorfpassage.org/product/the-...

Need help w/ this @maris.bsky.social challenge? Don’t sleep on Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories, translated from Kurdish by @gayadorno.bsky.social. @lydiakiesling.bsky.social hails it as a “breathtaking, virtuosic, dark, funny, furious, sad, and genuinely strange work of fiction.”

Donna Jean Godchaux was, and will forever remain, an indelible part of the Grateful Dead legacy. And it seems only fitting to honor this studio singer steeped in the legendary Muscle Shoals sound with a track that the Dead never played live. m.youtube.com/watch?v=yl-q...

Attention, New York City: Looking to take the pulse on Croatian literature today? Then don’t miss Monika Herceg and Maša Kolanović reading, and in discussion with Dijana Jelača, at the gallery Brief Histories on November 18.

Boo! Great to see Donald Niedekker’s Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost (tr. Jonathan Reeder) on this Yale Climate Connections list. yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/10/clim...

We’re thrilled to be bringing Monika Herceg to #Maine. Join us at the mighty Lambs in South Portland on November 17. "Herceg writes about a history that no longer belongs to the victors, and about beauty that cannot fit into the confines we previously knew." —Olga Tokarczuk

To celebrate both next week’s release of Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories and translator @gayadorno.bsky.social being a Literary Host at tonight’s @wwborders.bsky.social Gala, check out an excerpt of this Kurdish novel @thedialmag.bsky.social. www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

“I had to run in every direction, to explore this life myself.” In Hassan Akram’s A Plan to Save the World (translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Fawzy), childhood idealism clashes with the stark realities of living through war in a boy’s mission to not only save the world, but himself.

If you’re in the Portland, Maine, area it’s not too late to pick up a copy of Bedbugs and join in on the conversation at the Back Cove Books Book Club on November 4. backcovebooks.com/events/35736...

I have no opinion about this new Springsteen movie, but kudos to the casting director who got Brian Chase to play Max Weinberg.

Love poetry? Love deftly translated, righteously angry poetry that fuses physics with feminism? What if it’s endorsed by Olga Tokarczuk? If you’re in the Boston area, join us @brooklinebooksmith.bsky.social on November 14 to celebrate Closed Season.

Out in May: Will Firth’s translation of The Minister by Stefan Bošković, a mind-bending political noir that reveals the ugly truths about how the promises of democratic change empower corrupt politicians and organized crime syndicates, fan the flames of nationalism, and eradicate the middle class

Boston friends: Monika Herceg has two events next month to celebrate the release of Closed Season. The first is on November 13. “Herceg writes about a history that no longer belongs to the victors, and about beauty that cannot fit into the confines we previously knew.”—Olga Tokarczuk

Martina Vidaić and Ellen Elias-Bursać talk Bedbugs with Asymptote: “It’s not about the war or the post-war era, nor any of the themes that readers usually expect from the Balkans or from Croatia.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/10...

Every day is a good day to read Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed, and learn about the mission of the noble Mu'tafika among other lessons. This book is Strong Medicine

Looking for another Hungarian author who also blends horror with humor? Look no further than Peter Zilahy’s The Last Window-Giraffe, a fictional memoir about political protests in Belgrade modeled after an illustrated Hungarian primary school textbook. sandorfpassage.org/product/the-...

“Poetry . . . is a place of endless possibilities for exercising subversive power and challenging the dominant norms.” That’s translator Marina Veverec on Monika Herceg’s Closed Season. Read two poems from the collection @anmlymag.bsky.social and then buy the book! anmly.org/ap38/marina-...

Congratulations to Daniel Gustafsson. Just spent a few days kicking around Croatia with him as part of the Lit Link festival. Not only is he an excellent translator, but he’s published what sounds like an amazing novel centered around oyster farming. And a fun travel companion!