OT: Archipelago Books sale

Archipelago Books isn't fine press but they specialise in translations from all over the world, many of their titles you won't find elsewhere. The current sale runs until April 1st and is an increasing discount - 20% off 2 titles, 30% off 3, 40% off 4, and 50% off 5. A lot of very fine work to choose from. (The discount applies to ebooks as well as physical books, and the physical books are attractively made.)

https://archipelagobooks.org/all-books/

>1 Shadekeep: Thanks for the heads-up! Do you have any particular favourites? Works which are reasonably accessible too?

>2 GardenOfForkingPaths: I will jump in here because there are some gems: The First Wife, The Expedition to the Baobab Tree, A Mind at Peace, and A Dream in Polar Fog are among some of my faves from there!

Eastbound_by Maylis de Kerangal_ is an accessible, flowing novella, readable in a sitting. Enjoyed its focus and language.

>2 GardenOfForkingPaths: I do! I can recommend Distant Light, The Salt Smugglers, Lenz, Emblems of Desire, and The Serpent of Stars. There's a very wide range of styles to pick from there, happily.

>3 jveezer: I second A Dream in Polar Fog, and am getting The First Wife in my current order. Also picking up Mandarins: Stories, Ryunosuke Akutagawa is a magnificent storyteller.

Oh man, they coded the discount wrong, at least if you only buy ebooks. Each discount accumulates, rather than one replacing the other. I bought four ebooks, and when I checked out it had applied the 20%, 30%, and 40% discounts all together, resulting in a $4 purchase. I've informed them about this bug, they are a non-profit and I'd hate for them to get whaled on by obscenely underpriced orders. (Especially if the physical books are similarly discounted.) I imagine if I had bought five books the total discount would have been 140%!

>3 jveezer:
>4 abgreens:
>5 Shadekeep:

Thank you very much! Lots of great suggestions to explore.

>6 Shadekeep: Oh yeah, that's not good! Hopefully they'll fix that soon.

Even with the (correct) discount applied, I'm not sure if it's going to work out better for me to buy them locally in the UK or direct from Archipelago. Some of the titles are quite difficult to get here, especially the hardcover versions (which I assume are sewn bindings?)

Is their packaging decent enough? My last sale order from NYRB, which I shipped to the UK via a parcel forwarding company, got quite bashed up by the time it arrived. Only paperbacks, but it's a shame when things arrive creased and dinged.

>7 GardenOfForkingPaths: The packaging was adequate if I recall, though I'm in the US so they may pack differently for overseas delivery. They've been very responsive to me in email, so maybe you can reach out to them in advance and see if you can insure they use sturdy packing? Let them know you're a collector as well as a reader.

>8 Shadekeep: I will do. Thank you!

The webpage of Archipelago books takes a huge amount of time to load. When trying to add books to my cart, the whole process fails multiple times. When I manage to add 5 books to my cart, the discount is not applied although in the checkout it says that it has applied a discount of 50%.

>10 tkellici: That's odd, it's working for me, though it still adds the multiple discounts. (Adding five books brought the cart down to the price of just the shipping.) Maybe you were hitting them at a lag time? Are you in the US or accessing it from elsewhere?

I would have hoped any delays were caused by them fixing the discount problem, but I suspect their tech team may be off for the weekend.

>11 Shadekeep: I'm in the US. Let's see if the site gets fixed by next week.

Archipelago has fixed the cart issue and sent around refunds to people who placed orders under the broken system. I can confirm that when I add three books to the cart, only the 30% discount is applied. They seem to be doing a little extra as well, as after adding a book I also get a link to add another book for free. I suspect this is to make up for the technical hitch, and don't think it's only for members, as I'm not signed in there at the moment.

>7 GardenOfForkingPaths: I'm in my second year of the constellation membership and I encourage others to join. Archipelago is a nonprofit publisher who publishes fantastic international literature, poems and short stories. They're one of the best publishers out there and I hope they continue to prosper for decades to come.

Packaging to the US is usually in a paper envelope for smaller orders and in boxes for larger ones. They are packed well and I haven't had any problems yet with maybe a small mark at times to the cover.

As for some of the mishaps with previous orders, just give them some time. They are a smaller run company than say NYRB, and any mistake they make will be rectified in time.

As >3 jveezer: rightly points out, they have published so many gems. It really amazes me in life how much luck there is in success and the absurdity of it all. That many talented authors who never 'made it' are living in obscurity and conversely too many untalented individuals who never should have obtained their laurels. So it goes.

>14 Joshbooks1: Thanks for your thoughts! Such a good point about which authors receive recognition and which don't. It's great that companies like Archipelago, NYRB and Persephone are doing their best to balance the books a bit and highlight hitherto overlooked or under appreciated writers.

The international shipping direct from Archipelago was going to be quite steep and pretty much negated the discount, so I ended up ordering the books locally instead: The First Wife, Eastbound, A Dream in Polar Fog, Lenz and the first volume of My Struggle. Not totally sure if the Knausgaard will be my thing, but I'd like to give it a try after hearing so many people talk about it.

I heard good things about The Birds by Vesaas too, but couldn't find stock in the Archipelago edition so ordered it in the Penguin Modern Classics edition instead.

>14 Joshbooks1: I'm partial to Dalkey Archive Press.

https://www.dalkeyarchive.com/

>16 LBShoreBook: Excellent press! They put out Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature, which had a huge influence on my writing (and reading) habits. A ton of great books on offer from them.

As a side note, like many smaller publishing houses they seem to have a specialisation, in their case the aforementioned Oulipo style. Atlas Press specialises in Situationist works, Black Sparrow Press the Vorticists, etc.

I suspect this belongs in another thread, but just a quick note that I just started Dalkey's reissue of Marguerite Young's _Miss MacIntosh, My Darling_. Not sure I will finish the 1300 pages, but I find the language is musical, like meditation or other spiritual singing--and the characters are saturated so far...amazing...