May 26 2016
Czeslaw Milosz was born in 1911 on a farm in what was then part of the Russian Empire and is now near the center of independent Lithuania. He died in 2004 in Krakow, Poland’s old capital, which had been under Habsburg rule when he was born, but which was one of several second cities in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/26/the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz-the-twentieth-century/
May 25 2016
Soon after reading The Collapse was just the right time to pick up Europe at Midnight, Dave Hutchinson’s second book set in a Europe that kept right on collapsing after 1989 and, by the unspecified date of the story, sends more than 500 entrants each year to the Eurovision Song Contest. Europe at Midnight splinters …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/25/europe-at-midnight-by-dave-hutchinson/
May 18 2016
The Ruins of Gorlan is a splendid introduction to fantasy, especially for readers who like fast-moving stories but who may not be ready for the canonical masters of the genre. There aren’t any surprises for experienced readers, except to see how deftly and economically Flanagan moves his story and characters along. He does both, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/18/the-ruins-of-gorlan-by-john-flanagan/
May 17 2016
Some of the people I have mentioned this book to love Neil Gaiman’s work because he tells stories that draw on the mythical, the archetypal, pulling on deep threads of human experience and weaving it into contemporary settings. Others find that he pulls on those too quickly, that there isn’t enough context around the story …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/17/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/
May 13 2016
The mystery was a bit more predictable here, and the book overall took on a much more Harry Potter-slant than the first, but still a tremendously charming and engaging supernatural mystery, ostensibly for children, but definitely enjoyable for those well past that stage in life. In this installment of the series, Oona Crate enters a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/13/the-magicians-tower-by-shawn-thomas-odyssey/
May 13 2016
This book was so darn charming that I immediately went and got the next in the series. Oona Crate lives in Victorian-era New York City, or on a street adjacent to it anyway. Magic is inherent in her blood, but she would rather spurn her natural talents and the unreliability of magic for the cold, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/13/the-wizard-of-dark-street-by-shawn-thomas-odyssey/
May 12 2016
In The Collapse, Mary Elise Sarotte engages in a very close examination of the events in East Germany that led up to the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and a nearly minute-by-minute analysis of the day itself. Not quite an eyewitness to the events herself, though she is of an age …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/12/the-collapse-by-mary-elise-sarotte/
May 11 2016
“Did he have an interesting life?” asked a friend when I mentioned that I had started reading Einstein — His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Yes, he did, very interesting, and Isaacson is an able chronicler. More interesting than previously known, in fact; Isaacson used sources that were newly available at the time of writing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/11/einstein-his-life-and-universe-by-walter-isaacson/
May 10 2016
“Modern Polish literature,” writes Milosz, “begins with the generation that emerged from adolescence around 1890.” (p. 322) If Romanticism is the first literary movement with which Milosz and his contemporaries were in dialogue, this generation, called “Young Poland” (Młoda Polska) after 1899, are his immediate forbears, the literary uncles (and much more rarely aunts) who …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/10/young-poland-the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz/
May 09 2016
As part of a series published by the Modern Library, Mark Mazower wrote a 200-page history of The Balkans, and it appeared back in 2000. It’s a handy little book, and it makes me want to take a look at the rest of the series, which feature well-known and opinionated authors writing about subjects on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/09/the-balkans-by-mark-mazower/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire