Gigei

Where should I start with Olga Tokarczuk? Specifically, which one of her works is more newbie friendly towards a reader who doesn't know much about Polish history?

Re: Zero first episode just dropped but I'm waiting there are more episodes. Probably.

I've seen the same ending in many GGK books though, so I was expecting it.

Just finished A Brightness Long Ago. Typical GGK book. It's okay but I did lose interest about 2/3rds of the way in (after the race).

I have read the news about the Swedish Academy. I was a bit shocked. I remember when I was a wee little undergrad and had some lit and art classes, my professors always told us not to be too impressed by awards. Apparently, the general public enjoys that sort of thing but among writers, artists, and academicians, it's pretty well-known that: just a very small group of people give out the awards (like a committee of 5 people per award) it's very political art/lit criticism has trends just like pop culture does most damning of all - almost all of them just give awards to each other (speaking of the small, more local award-giving bodies) The last one was really an eye-opener. One prof told us to check a list of the award winners and the committee members (of a local award) there was considerable overlap, especially if you knew which artists/writers were in mentor/protege relationships. I'm not saying every award-giving committee is corrupt but rather, I suspect that they tend to be just people patting each other and their friends on the back to say "good job."