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Tag: Alejandro Zambra

Does Anything but the NPR Book Concierge Matter? A Links Round-Up

Joyous, joyous day! The NPR Book Concierge for 2019 has landed! As usual, my TBR list has exponentiated as a result. It’s Friday and I have other links, but realistically, the one we care about is the Book Concierge. Find books in good health, friends! Here’s what it’s like to be an audiobook narrator. I wouldn’t exactly call Gaudy Night an “overlooked” novel but that doesn’t mean I will turn up my nose at this appreciation of Gaudy Night and its heroine, my favorite character in all of literature, Harriet Vane. So here’s the thing about My Favorite Murder. (Disclosure,…

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Review: Multiple Choice, Alejandro Zambra

I didn’t do this on purpose, although I would have if I’d thought of it: The book I read immediately after the election turned out to be a work of experimental fiction that explores how life and education in a dictatorship narrows the range of thoughts that it is possible to think. Alejandro Zambra’s Multiple Choice, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a spoof on the Academic Aptitude Exam, required for all college-bound Chilean students, which Zambra took in 1993, when Chile was in transition to democracy following years of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. In an interview with The…

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