Random org has determined the winner of the second Dickens in December giveaway.
The winner of a copy of Tom-All-Alone’s, including a book-plate signed by the author is
Séamus Duggan (Vapour Trails).
Congratulations Séamus.
Please send me your address via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com
It’s time for the second Dickens in December giveaway. Delia and I are both giving away a book but the choices are quite different. Don’t miss to visit her blog and find out what she has to offer.
Lynn Shepherd’s novel Tom-All-Alone’s is one in a long tradition of books which have been inspired by Dickens. While I must honestly admit that I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, I decided to give away a copy of this novel as I think it sounds excellent. More than one blogger I appreciate has written a favorable review of this book (here and here and here) and I think it’s safe to assume it will be a great read.
And there is even an additional treat included in this giveaway – Lynn has offered to send the winner a signed book-plate. Thank you so much, Lynn!
Here’s the blurb
The story of Tom-All-Alone’s takes place in the ‘space between’ two masterpieces of mid-Victorian fiction: Bleak House and The Woman in White – overlapping with them, and re-imagining them for a contemporary reader, with a modern understanding of the grimmer realities of Victorian society. Charles Maddox, dismissed from the police force, is working as a private detective and can only hope to follow in his uncle’s formidable footsteps as an eminent thief-taker. On a cold and bright Autumn morning, a policeman calls on Charles at his lodgings with information that may be related to a case he is working on. He goes to a ruined cemetery to find a shallow grave containing the remains of four babies has been discovered. After examining them he concludes they are not related to his investigation, which is to find a young girl abandoned in a workhouse 16 years before, when her mother died. But all is not as it first appears. As he’s drawn into another case at the behest of the eminent but feared lawyer, Edward Tulkinghorn, London’s sinister underbelly begins to emerge. From the first gruesome murder, Charles has a race against time to establish the root of all evil. Tom’s-All-Alone is ‘Dickens but darker’ – without the comedy, without the caricature, and a style all its own. The novel explores a dark underside of Victorian life that Dickens and Collins hinted at – a world in which young women are sexually abused, unwanted babies summarily disposed of, and those that discover the grim secrets of great men brutally eliminated.
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If you would like to win a copy of this book, just leave a comment and tell my why you think you’d like to read it.
The giveaway is open internationally and ends on December 25. The winner will be announced on December 26.
Dickens in December will end that same week and we wanted to let you know that we will wrap up the event on December 30. Please make sure all of your contributions and reviews have been added to the link list on my Dickens in December page. We would like to make sure that we have included all of you in the wrap up.
Random org has determined the winner of one copy of John Sutherland’s The Dickens Dictionary offered by Icon Books.
The winner of the copy on this blog is Shimona from the Palace.
Congratulations, Shimona.
Please send me your address via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com.
Earlier this year I reviewed John Sutherland’s The Dickens Dictionary and it was this book which started the whole idea of Dickens in December. That’s why we are particularly pleased that Icon Books have offered us two copies of the Dictionary for our first giveaway. We are giving a way one book per blog.
I really like this book, it’s informative, interesting and contains a lot of illustrations. Here is the blurb
For fans old and new, a fascinating tour through Charles Dickens’ novels in the hands of a master critic.Oliver Twist … Great Expectations … David Copperfield – all contain a riotous fictional world that still leaves and breathes for readers the world over today.But how much do we really know about Charles Dickens’ dazzling imagination, which has brought this all into being?To celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Dickens – 2012 – Victorian literature expert John Sutherland has created a gloriously wide-ranging alphabetical companion to Dickens’ novels, excavating the hidden links between his characters, themes, and preoccupations, and the minutiae of his endlessly inventive wordplay.Covering America, Bastards, Childhood, Christmas, Empire, Fog, Larks, London, Madness, Murder, Orphans, Pubs, Punishment, Smells, Spontaneous Combustion and Zoo to name but a few – John Sutherland gives us a uniquely personal guide to Charles Dickens’ books.
If you’d like to win a copy of this book, just leave a comment. If you want to improve your chances of winning you can leave a comment on this and one on Delia’s blog. That way your name will be in both draws but you can only win once.
The giveaway is open internationally. The winners will be announced on Tuesday 11 December.
I’m pleased to announce the winner of Joseph Roth’s novel Job which we are giving away courtesy of archipelago books.
The winner is Scott W.
Congratulations, Scott, please send me your address via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com
Initially we had planned two giveaways for German Literature Month but now, thanks to the generosity of another editor, there is additional one today.
I’m particularly pleased as this gives me the opportunity to introduce archipelago books who are offering the title for this giveaway. Archipelago books have one of the most interesting catalogs of literature in translation I have seen so far. They offer great titles from all over the world.
I also really love their motto
a not-for-profit literary press dedicated to promoting cross-cultural exchange through international literature in translation
If you don’t know them yet it’s worth having a look at their site. Some of their books are prize winners, also in the category “Best translation”.
For German Literature Month I have the opportunity to give away one copy of one of the classics of Austrian literature, Joseph Roth’s Job.
Job is the tale of Mendel Singer, a pious, destitute Eastern-European Jew and children’s Torah teacher whose faith is tested at every turn. His youngest son seems to be incurably disabled, one of his older sons joins the Russian Army, the other deserts to America, and his daughter is running around with a Cossack. When he flees with his wife and daughter, further blows of fate await him. In this modern fable based on the biblical story of Job, Mendel Singer witnesses the collapse of his world, experiences unbearable suffering and loss, and ultimately gives up hope and curses God, only to be saved by a miraculous reversal of fortune.
As you can see, this is a novel that comes with high praise.
“A beautifully written, and in the end uplifting, parable for an era of upheaval . . . Job, opened to any page, offers something of beauty. . . Ross Benjamin’s excellent new translation gives us both the realism and the poetry.”
—The Quarterly Conversation“The totality of Joseph Roth’s work is no less than a tragédie humaineachieved in the techniques of modern fiction.”
—Nadine Gordimer“Joseph Roth was a permanent novelist. His Job was a worthy precursor of that masterpiece [The Radetzky March] . . . [Job is] both immensely sorrowful and finally strangely hopeful.”
—Harold Bloom“Jobis more than a novel and legend, it is a pure, perfect poetic work, which is destined to outlast everything that we, his contemporaries, have created and written. In unity of construction, in depth of feeling, in purity, in the musicality of the language, it can scarcely be surpassed.”
—Stefan Zweig“This life of an everyday man moves us as if someone had written of our lives, our longings, our struggles. Roth’s language has the discipline and rigor of German Classicism. A great and harrowing book that no one can resist.”
—Ernst Toller“Job is perfect. . . . a novel as lyric poem.”
—Joan Acocella
The competition is US only. The winner will be announced on Monday October 22 2012.
Busy random org has done its job and here are the winners of the second give away of German Literature Month.
Susanna has won Alex Capus – Léon and Louise
Judith (Leeswammes’ Blog) has won Daniel Glattauer – Love Virtually
TBM (50 Year Project) has won Alissa Walser – Mesmerized
Neer (A Hot Cup of Pleasure) is the winner of Andrea Maria Schenkel – The Murder Farm
Novia (Polychrome Interest) is the winner of The Brothers Grimm – Fairy Tales
Vishy (Vishy’s Blog) has won Zoran Drvenkar – Tell Me What You See
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 