Well, not quite a movie. But a close second. This is the author film made for me by the excellent production company Vloop.
The idea is to give a little flavour of what Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer is like and how it’s different from the blog. At the end, there are links to three very short extra videos about some of the highlights from that extraordinary year, as well as the film of the shelf piling up with books. I hope you like it.
Seeing the finished film is a great end to what’s already been a very exciting week. In the past few days, the book’s first review has been published and I visited the Guardian newspaper’s offices to record a podcast – to be released soon.
There are lots more things to come in the next few weeks as we build up to the UK publication day (or pub date, as I’ve learned it’s called in the industry) of February 5, 2015. Watch this space.
this is so exciting, can’t wait to read it
I’m really excite to read the book. I hope I can buy it in Brazil 🙂 I wanna try to read some of the books you read.
Thanks!
They’re all great excerpts Ann, bravo for creating them. I particularly love the anecdote about the book that was translated for you, you created a community by linking all these countries and nothing shows the spirit of that accomplishment better than when an inspired group corrals together and exceeds expectations to bring a successful conclusion to a part of your project. It is so fitting that you then offer it to the world. I hope it gets translated too!
Thanks Claire – me too!
What a carping snob that reviewer is! I don’t think you ever claimed that you were limiting yourself to ‘great literature’ from every country – even assuming that you could find it. I’d like to see HIS list of every country with what he considers an acceptable title next to it.
I never realised before that literary tourism is ‘dastardly’! I don’t think you ever claimed that reading a place was the same as going there, in fact you rightly questioned my search for ‘quiddity’ in one of my countries.
He’s right that sometimes a translation is better than the original – an Ecuadorian friend thinks that the English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude is better than the Spanish original. But it almost never is. It’s just something we have to live with.
How bizarre to pick Ngugi wa Thiong’o as a supporter of English, when he famously stopped writing in this language!
I’m looking forward to reading your book and am still full of amazement at what you’ve done.
Enjoy your Year of Reading Pu Songling!
Aw. Thanks Bradley. From what I hear, it’s actually quite a good review from him. I’m not sure I agree with all his comments, as I do write quite a lot about the problem of authenticity in the book and I refer to the usual cliches about translation so that I can argue against them (and never say that translations are always worse than the original). But you’ll have to read the book and decide for yourself! Thanks again for your support.