Now Available: Limited Edition Signed Copies of 'Where the Bird Sings Best'

December 17, 2015 in Latin American Literature, Special Offers, Fiction

Recently named one the Best Books of 2015 by NPR, Where the Bird Sings best is the unforgettable autobiographical epic by the legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Restless now has available limited edition signed hardcovers. (Check out the man himself on his way to sign the books in Paris.) We only have twenty-five copies, so get them while they last!

Don Quixote Online Book Group—First Discussion

November 04, 2015 in Fiction, Classics, Book Club

Newly introduced by leading Quixote scholar Ilan Stavans, this 400th Anniversary edition of Don Quixote—called the most popular book in history after the Bible and the first modern novel—inaugurates Restless Classics: interactive encounters with great books and inspired teachers. Each Restless Classic is beautifully designed with original artwork, a new introduction for the trade audience, and a video teaching series and live online book club discussions led by passionate experts.

Join us this Friday, November 6, 1:00 – 3:00 EST at the Restless Facebook page for the first of four live, online discussions about the book, led by Ilan Stavans. We'll be talking about the first quarter of the text, and more generally about Don Quixote and its place in the world. Even if you haven't cracked the book open yet, we'd love to hear from you!

Get the Book:

Join the Discussion:

When: Friday, November 6, 1:00 – 3:00 EST

Where: The Restless Books Facebook page

How: Find the book discussion post on the Facebook page, and add your question or comment in the "Write a comment" field. Ilan Stavans and the Restless team will respond to you. Feel free to respond to other questions and comments, too!

Who: The first online book group discussion is free and open to the public. The Don Quixote video teaching series filmed by Ilan Stavans is exclusively available to those who've purchased the book, which includes instructions on how to access the videos. See below for more info.

Examples:

Here are some questions to get you thinking about the first part of the book before the discussion begins:

What is a parody? In what sense is the novel parodic?
Do you think Don Quixote is mentally ill?
Why do you think Don Quixote has become an inspiration for freedom-fighters like Ernesto “Ché” Guevara and Nelson Mandela?
Why is Don Quixote often described as meta-literary, that is, a narrative in which its characters are aware of their literary condition?
Don Quixote is an avid reader who loses the capacity to discern between what is real and what isn’t. Is the novel a critique of the act of reading?

Watch the Videos:

The Restless Classics edition of Don Quixote comes with a corresponding series of eight teaching videos and four online book group discussions led by Ilan Stavans. Once you have the book in hand, you'll see a set of instructions on the first page, which will direct you to look for a symbol that appears eight times throughout the book, signaling a corresponding video.

The instructions will also list a website where, after entering your information, you'll be able to access the videos and get the details about the four live online book club discussions that will take place in the months following publication. Once released, all videos will remain live for later viewing. All book group discussions will be archived and will remain accessible as well.

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Reviews and Press for 'The Underground' by Hamid Ismailov

October 05, 2015 in Fiction, Reviews

Updated September 25, 2015

Featured

The Underground

$16.99

by Hamid Ismailov

Translated from the Russian by Carol Ermakova

Named one of “the best Russian novels of the 21st Century” (Continent Magazine), The Underground is the unforgettable story of an abandoned mixed-race boy navigating the wondrous and terrifying city of Moscow before the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Paperback ISBN: 9781632060440
Publication date: Sep 22, 2015

PRAISE AND HIGHLIGHTS

Ismailov, Barnes, and Ermakova speak to a packed house

A SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH IN LONDON

Hamid Ismailov had a standing-room only crowd at Waterstones Piccadilly, “Europe’s Largest Bookshop,” for the launch of his novel The Underground. Ismailov was joined in conversation by the book's translator, Carol Ermakova, and Hugh Barnes, a journalist and specialist on Russian matters. Read all about it on the Turnaround Blog.

THE GUARDIAN: "A LUMINOUS ELEGY FOR LATE-SOVIET MOSCOW"

“Exiled Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov weaves this story of mundane misery and visceral decay into a luminous elegy for late-Soviet Moscow.… Ably translated by Carol Ermakova.… Ismailov’s novel inevitably invites comparison with Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground.… The Underground recreates a lost Moscow. The narrator’s memories map out a haunting, bittersweet cityscape, with landmarks that no longer exist and names that have long since changed.” —The Guardian

HAMID ISMAILOV INTERVIEWED BY ELECTRIC LITERATURE

Electric Literature published a frank and illuminating conversation between Hamid Ismailov and Melody Nixon, about “censorship and creativity, political economy, and life for writers outside of the global centers of literary production.” Here he is on diversity in literature:

"What I lacked as a reader and writer in the Soviet era, from childhood onwards, was a depiction of the reality that was around me. I was in a melting pot of all kinds of nations, cultures, beliefs, faiths and civilizations, and I didn’t see the richness of these experiences depicted in Soviet literature.... In coming to the west I all of sudden realized it was an even bigger problem for western literature than for Soviet. In Ian McEwan’s famous books you hardly meet any Black people, or Caribbean people, or Chinese. Take wonderful Kazuo Ishiguro, who is himself Japanese by origin. Almost all his books are about English people, and that’s it. So in the mainstream English literature you can’t see any multi-national, or other realities apart from rare exceptions."

Read the full interview on Electric Literature