Keshiki Keshiki Keshiki

Strangers Press is a new small publisher based in Norwich who are setting out to bring great translated literature to English-speaking readers. They've launched very impressively with the 'Keshiki: New Voices from Japan' series, 8 novellas published as DL-sized chapbooks, with eye-catching covers and interiors printed in unusual dark blue ink. I ordered them based on their looks alone, not having read any of the authors before, but fortunately they're also quality stuff prose-wise.

All the books have French flaps with the author and translator biographies on them. Click for bigger, semi-readble versions.

So you don't have to suffer too much from my inepty photographs, here are the individual covers and their designer credits.

Design by Glen Robinson

Design by Glen Robinson

Design by Glen Robinson

Design by Glen Robinson

Design by Nigel Aono-Billson

Design by Nigel Aono-Billson

Design by Nigel Aono-Billson

Design by Nigel Aono-Billson

Strangers Press's website makes no mention of what their next project will be, but I look forward to it with impatience and greed.

Queued Penguins

Perving at the upcoming Penguin Classics has revealed a bunch of things I will need to spend money on, and a few things worthy of comment here. First of all, an apparently random trio of upcoming titles have a completely new series design, for no reason I can yet determine. I like it, but don't understand what's happening.

 

  

 

There's also a welcome addition of more weird/horror fiction to the line, both American and Filipino.

 

We also have another ofBassani's Romanzo di Ferrara books, getting us closer to having the whole cycle in print in English...

 

..and using a cover image last seen on the late, lamented Harvill edition of Erwin Mortier's My Fellow Skin.

And then we have Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, which is a welcome addition to the library of books featuring Josephine Baker on the cover.

Here are some of the other upcoming offerings worth your consideration.