The Reading Life Review - October. 2019

October Authors

The Reading Life is a multicultural book blog, committed to Literary Globalism.  

Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Yiddish Culture,Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among our interests.

Row 1

1. Eleanor Fitzsimons - Ireland - author of The Lives and Loves of E. Nesbit and Wilde's Women

2. Anne Boyd Rioux - USA - author of Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist

3. Ron Chernow - USA - Pulitzer Prize winning biographer

4. Leo Tolstoy - Russia

Row 2

1. YZ Chin - Malaysia to USA - author of prize winning debut collection of short stories, Though I Get Home.  To be featured in November

2. Lydia Davis - USA - novelist, short story writer, translator of Proust and Flaubert

3. Gustave Flaubert - France

4. Mavis Gallant - Canada to France - featured many times

Row 3

1. Brian Kirk - Ireland - featured eight times, hopefully to be followed for many years

2. Katherine Mansfield - New Zealand

3. Danielle McLaughlin - Ireland - award winning short story writer, featured numerous times

Home Countries of Authors

1. Ireland - 3

2. USA - 3

3. France - 1

4. Malaysia - 1

5. Canada - 1

6. New Zealand - 1

7. Russia - 1

In October 7 women were featured, four men, three deceased, eight living.  Only one writer was featured for the first time, YZ Chin.

Blog Stats

The Most Viewed Posts in October were all on short stories by South and South Asian writers, three pre-WW Two stories from the Philippines, one from India, "Yellow Fish" by C. S. Lakshmi (aka Ambai) with the most viewed post being The Century Carver" by Oka Rusmini-An Indonesian Short Story.  These are long standing trends.

Top Home countries of visitors

1. USA

2. The Philippines

3. India

4. The Netherlands -first time in this list

5. Russia.- spam factories?

6. Canada

7. Ukraine 

8. Germany

There has been 5,848,483 page views since inception.

Works read in October but unposted Upon

1. The Sympathizer by Viet Nguyen

2. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

3. Millard Filmore: Biography of a President by Robert Rayback 

Mel also read two short stories he did not post about but he wanted listed. Both appeared in THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY OF THE YEAR Volume Eleven, 2017

1. You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay, Alyssa Wong- there are several posts on this writer.  Mel is very high on her work, there are posts on her stories on RL, including links

2. RED DIRT WITCH N.K. Jemisin - she won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2016, 2017, and 2018, unprecedented.  

Both these writers will be featured in time, I think.

November Plans

For the eight year, I will be participating in German Literature Month

Details are here- I will soon do a post on my plans for this year.

http://germanlitmonth.blogspot.com/

I will continue reading along on Buried in Print's Mavis Gallant Project

http://www.buriedinprint.com/mavis-gallant-reading-project/

We might do a reading plan post for the next two months

Our thanks extended to Max u for his kind provision of Amazon gift cards

To those who leave comments, you keep us going.

Oleander Bousweau