Combines the virtues of a first class work of reference with the pleasure of a good read

It is hard to imagine a book more of its time than Working on My Novel... Arcangel has reflected something poignant about this collective yearning for creative individuation, about how technology seems to facilitate self-expression while effecting a strange obliteration of the individual-a symbolic compression of the self into the repository of the personal brand... The playful suggestion here seems to be that Working on My Novel is itself actually a novel

Arcangel's work regularly uses appropriation, whether it's hacking video games, excavating Andy Warhol old computer console illustrations or creating hi-tech art inspired by Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone". Working On My Novel sticks to those themes of endless recycling, transferring one form of media to create another - and as always, it's pretty funny

Can't wait to finish this : ) so can work on my #novel

The tweets were found by searching Twitter for the phrase "working on my novel," and originally compiled at Arcangel's twitter account, @wrknonmynovel. Seriously meta. And seriously funny-sad

For some, Twitter is both a distraction and a medium for a peculiar type of written soliloquy. It's the confluence of those two streams that makes artist Cory Arcangel's new book, Working on my Novel, particularly poignant

Man. I wish I'd come up with that idea. #amwriting

A fascinating...very readable study of the mysterious art and business of translation...Bellos asks big questions...and comes up with often surprising answers...sparky, thought-provoking

Forget the fish-it's David Bellos you want in your ear when the talk is about translation. Bellos dispels many of the gloomy truisms of the trade and reminds us what an infinitely flexible instrument the English language (or any language) is. Sparkling, independent-minded analysis of everything from Nabokov's insecurities to Google Translate's felicities fuels a tender-even romantic-account of our relationship with words.

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? offers a lively survey of translating puns and poetry, cartoons and legislation, subtitles, news bulletins and the Bible

Please read David Bellos's brilliant book

A clear and lively survey...This book fulfils a real need; there is nothing quite like it.

In his marvellous study of the nature of translation...[David Bellos] has set out to make it fun...Essential reading for anyone with even a vague interest in language and translation - in short, it is a triumph

A dazzyingly inventive book

Witty and perceptive...stimulating, lucid, ultimately cheering

Superbly smart, supremely shrewd

Selected as a National Book Critics' Circle Award Criticism Finalist 2011

Personal and affectionate tribute

Affectionate, familial tribute to this many-sided man.