Felled by the dreaded lurgy in early January I was sidelined from my usual reading routine. It’s hard to concentrate when little spikes of fever send your mind swimming into the stratosphere. The symptoms weren’t that bad but the fatigue was real and concentration was not at peak performance. An Agatha Christie re-read was in … Read more
Researching Marienbad and the Savoy led me to Erika Mann and all the gossip, scandal, politics, and drama of her family. I wanted to read her account of life in pre-war Germany The Lights Go Down in part of my preparation for the 1940 Club and here. I couldn’t track down a copy so I … Read more
Here’s a treat for those who relish fiction with off-the-wall cognitive mayhem – The Hearing Trumpet Suddenly it seemed as if everyone in my online book world had read it (see here and here for here examples). It’s a short novel by Leonora Carrington, better known for her wildly idiosyncratic art. It was written in … Read more
I do remember the trial of Dr. Bodkin Adams. My family took The Daily Herald back in 1957 and I was old enough to pay attention. I recall being fascinated by the name Bodkin and who could not be interested in the sensational trial of a doctor accused of drugging and murdering his patient in … Read more
I follow the art historian Richard Morris on Twitter and his tweets are a daily delight – each one providing a insight into a painter, a period, a life, or work of art. This week he referenced the Guardian obituary of the wonderful writer Ronald Blythe who has just died at the age of 100. … Read more
This is a review of a book I have not read that does not actually exist. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this dive into the golden age of crime and detective fiction. An isolated country house in winter and a cast of quirky characters none of whom are quite what they seem. There are … Read more
We like lists because we don’t want to die Back, book, casualty, honors, naughty and nice, shopping, spelling, top-ten, and all the rest – how we love our lists and cataloging, inventorying, ordering, and sorting our lives with lists. The list is the origin of culture, and lists exist to make infinity comprehensible. And those … Read more
A novel by Kate Atkinson is always something to look forward to and I’ve just finished reading her latest – The Shrines of Gaiety. As always, she does not disappoint. This character-rich, picaresque romp through the underbelly of the world of the Bright Young Things of London in the 1920s is what is known as … Read more
There’s a lovely exhibit currently on show at the Morgan Library. It’s the work of artist-illustrator Ashley Bryan (see below for the Morgan’s description.) Many of the pieces are collages in the vibrant colors of the kind of elementary school construction paper. I could imagine school group trips and the response to the words and … Read more
Poetry is critical to a complete understanding of the First World War because in the years leading up to and including the war, poetry played a central role in public and private life. Constance Ruzich, in the introduction to the anthology. It was Paul Fussell who showed us that the young British officer class that … Read more
This tweet about toasting marshmallows on a fire stoked with Harry Potters brought to mind an odd incident from my childhood. To the amusement of the world, my home town decided to ban a classic of medieval Italian literature as obscene and pornographic. The year was 1954 and book was Boccaccio’s Decameron. Until that point … Read more
With so many books and so little time, it helps to have a little guidance. It also helps when two or even three books can be read simultaneously – thus saving the reader valuable time for even more books. Here then is my current recommended reading list. Something for everyone here. Old Favorites Rediscovered Steppenwolf … Read more
The Year Begins in October Armistead Maupin based his vignettes of gay life in 1970s San Francisco – Tales of the City – on Jan Struther’s Mrs. Miniver (1939). They first appeared in a long-running serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. Instinctively I wanted to write a gay male Mrs Miniver, the minutiae of gay … Read more
Together with a whole lot of other readers in the UK in 1976, I read Wilt – the first in a series of over-the-top, grotesque Tom Sharpe novels about the misadventures of a mild-mannered and hapless tech college teacher named Henry Wilt. He’s a rather fuddy-duddy, decent-enough, beer-drinking, everyman kind of chap given to being … Read more
Hands down, this is the best book I’ve read all year: All For Nothing by Walter Kempowski. It’s the bitter winter of 1945. An odd assortment of people lives in the Georgenhof – a small neglected estate in East Prussia. Eberhard von Globig is a Sonderführer, a special officer in the German army away in … Read more