BGB Recommends
I picked up the latest from the lit mag on steroids Granta, Issue #109: Work, because I saw that a favorite author (Steven Hall) had a non-fiction in the work-themed issue. This is only the second Granta that I’ve bought and the first that I’ve read under new editor John Freeman. Granta costs $17, which seems a little spendy. This issue, at least, is worth every penny.
Some highlights:
Steven Hall (The Raw Shark Texts) reports from a US robotics lab:
TANK is a robot with a job. He has had lots of jobs–he once worked for NASA–but wasn’t very good at any of them. After a string of demotions, TANK now works as a receptionist at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. At least, that is what he’ll tell you.
Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio) reports on the alarming book piracy endemic to Peru:
Suddenly it was August and I still hadn’t been pirated. I was starting to get nervous…Then, on the morning of August 14, my last day in Lima, my editor called with the good news. He’d seen the book for sale in San Isidro, on the corner of Aramburu and Via Expressa…My editor’s tone was congratulatory. I was frankly relieved. (Read the entire essay. See the slideshow. Check out Alarcon’s conversation with John Freeman.)
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin) remembers his father, a newspaperman, telling him to stay out of the newspaper business.
The issue also contains work by Salman Rushdie, Jim Crace, Julian Barnes, Joshua Ferris, and others. Check out the video intro to the issue here. Then grab a copy.
March 16, 2010 8:01 am 
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