It is Best Books of the Year time and The Guardian’s Nicholas Lazard has put together a great best paperbacks of 2014 that includes a Literalab Best Book of a couple years back, when it was a paperback too, but, never mind.
The book in question is Seven Terrors by Selvedin Avdić. It also includes a book excerpted in B O D Y – The Blue Room by Norwegian author Hanne Ørstavik. Mr. Lazard clearly is onto something.
The rest of the list looks pretty interesting too.
Read the excerpt of The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik in B O D Y
Read my review of Seven Terrors by Selvedin Avdić in B O D Y
2014 debuts
Electric Literature has published a 2014 list of notable debuts, dubbing this year “the year of debuts”. Among the debut novels selected is David Connerley Nahm’s Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky, an excerpt of which was published in B O D Y. Also, are debuts by many authors on some of the many “Best of” lists already out, such as Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Roxane Gay and John Darnielle.
Krastan Dyankov Translation Award
The Elizabeth Kostova Foundation has announced the laureates of its Krastan Dyankov Translation Award 2014, with the 3000 BGN main award going to Svetlozara Leseva for her translation of the novel In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner and the 1500 BGN special award to Nadezhda Rozova for the translation of A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.
You can read more about the award, including the shortlist here
literalab 
I read Seven Terrors earlier this year on the recommendation of Nicholas Lezard. An intensely human and structurally fascinating piece of writing – I can only hope his work continues to gain attention. As far as I know Istros has no paper distribution for North America (I’m in Canada) so although their e-books are available and very affordable through Amazon, this is a book I would want to give to friends and see on the shelves of my favourite independent bookstore.
Thanks for a great blog.
Thanks, and it’s nice to have a paperback copy of it.