Doug Merrill

Writer, editor, translator, project manager, reformed bookseller. Currently based in Berlin, following stints in Moscow, Tbilisi, Munich, Washington, Warsaw, Budapest and Atlanta. Also blogs at A Fistful of Euros, though less frequently than here these days.

Most commented posts

  1. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 9 comments
  2. White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies — 7 comments
  3. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire — 6 comments
  4. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — 6 comments
  5. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin — 6 comments

Author's posts

Aspects by John M. Ford

Aspects by John M. Ford

So many weeks and months gone by, and still none of the right words about Aspects. John M. Ford sold his first story to one of the “big three” science fiction magazines before turning 20. Ford wrote a Star Trek novel from the point of view of the Klingons years before The Next Generation brought …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/29/aspects-by-john-m-ford/

Merry Christmas

Luke 2:1-14, Anglo-Saxon: Soþlice on þam dagum wæs geworden gebod fram þam casere Augusto, þæt eall ymbehwyrft wære tomearcod. Þeos tomearcodnes wæs æryst geworden fram þam deman Syrige Cirino. And ealle hig eodon, and syndrige ferdon on hyra ceastre. Ða ferde Iosep fram Galilea of þære ceastre Nazareth on Iudeisce ceastre Dauides, seo is genemned …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/25/merry-christmas-2/

That’s Dickens with a C and a K, the Well-Known English Author

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/24/thats-dickens-with-a-c-and-a-k-the-well-known-english-author-2/

Electric Light by Seamus Heaney

Electric Light by Seamus Heaney

At age 62, some 35 years after publishing his first book-length collection, six years after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Seamus Heaney might have settled into a particular style of poetry. In Electric Light, though, Heaney forges onward. The volume features at least three eclogues (a short, pastoral poem, often in dialogue; I had …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/11/electric-light-by-seamus-heaney/

The Best of Connie Willis by Connie Willis

The Best of Connie Willis

The Best of Connie Willis brings together her shorter works of fiction — short story, novelette and novella — that have won either the Hugo or Nebula award. That she could fill a full-sized collection exclusively with award-winners is a testament to her skill as a storyteller and to the regard science fiction fans and writers …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/10/the-best-of-connie-willis-by-connie-willis/

The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson

The first time I read The Odyssey, I was on a bit of an odyssey myself: from Budapest to Helsinki, and thence to DC via London. It didn’t take ten years, and I didn’t feel the need to plot a bunch of murders when I reached my new home. Nor did I lose my ship …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/05/the-odyssey-translated-by-emily-wilson/

The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney

The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney

Usually when I am reading one of Seamus Heaney’s collections, I use a slip of paper as a bookmark and note the poems that strike me as particularly interesting or effective, so that I can have them fresh in my mind when I write about them for Frumious, or as a guide when I return …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/04/the-spirit-level-by-seamus-heaney/

Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Once I got into it — this winter, after failing last winter — this went by fast, and why not, it’s a collection of short autobiographical, ostensibly seasonal snippets from a Norwegian author who’s often mentioned as a potential Nobel laureate. As an object, the edition of Winter that I have is a lovely book: thick …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/12/03/winter-by-karl-ove-knausgaard/

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Not quite 30 years ago I was backpacking around southeastern Europe when something unfortunate happened: I ran out of books. Well, technically, I did not run out of books; my backpack still held what a reasonable person would probably consider more than enough books. But since I had last replenished from the freebies at a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/30/the-brothers-karamazov-by-fyodor-dostoevsky/

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

A country and a century, told through what happened to a family, narrated by a member of that family’s next-to-youngest generation, dedicated to a member of the youngest generation who is trying to both escape and understand the legacy she is bearing. In The Eighth Life (For Brilka), Nino Haratischvili brings her native Georgia to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/11/20/the-eighth-life-by-nino-haratischvili/