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
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 9 comments
- White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies — 7 comments
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — 7 comments
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire — 6 comments
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin — 6 comments
Author's posts
Charlie Fitzer’s day is just about to get a lot better. As it begins, he’s divorced (his ex-wife is seeing an investment banker and sharing her fabulous vacations on her Instagram account, which of course Charlie follows), his career has descended from business reporter for the Chicago Tribune to middle-school substitute teacher (thanks to layoffs …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/02/starter-villain-by-john-scalzi/
The writing of Jozef Czapski persuaded me to read Proust, and the writing of Marcel Proust persuaded me to stop. Czapski noted that Proust wanted popular success, and that one of the first translations of Proust into Polish had made him popular in that language, in part by rendering his famously extended sentences into more …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/19/the-way-by-swanns-by-marcel-proust/
Some twenty years after publication, The Cold War no longer matches its subtitle, “A New History,” but it remains a useful book about the conflict that shaped international politics for nearly half a century and, not incidentally, came close to ending human civilization. It is useful in a number of ways. First of all, it …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/12/the-cold-war-by-john-lewis-gaddis/
By the early 1960s, Vasily Grossman was in an odd position with the authorities of the Soviet Union. He had been a recognized writer starting in the 1930s, and as a war correspondent he was both beloved by regular troops and honored by the state. His novels were serialized in major newspapers, and his time …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/11/an-armenian-sketchbook-by-vasily-grossman/
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an absolutely furious short novel about sexism in South Korea, and while its incidents and statistics are specific to that country, it can stand in for how badly half of the world’s human population commonly treats the other half, often without even noticing. The book opens with what appears to …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/10/kim-jiyoung-born-1982-by-cho-nam-joo/
The title — The Death of a Beekeeper — lets readers know right away that this will not be an overly cheerful novel. It is a moving story, eventually a beautiful one in its slightly off-kilter way. Which is only fair because the beekeeper, one Lars Lennart Westin, often called “Wiesel,” is a slightly off-kilter …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/05/der-tod-eines-bienenzuchters-by-lars-gustafsson/
The back cover asserts that A Song of Comfortable Chairs is “the one where Mma Potokwani saves the day,” and indeed she does, but this deep into the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, getting there is all of the fun. Which is just as well, because all of this book’s storylines emerge from actions …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/04/a-song-of-comfortable-chairs-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
“What kind of a life do you lead where you find yourself building a dog of bones?” (p. 2) Marra asks herself, though of course she knows. It’s the readers who want to know how she has come to this distinctly creepy, slightly mad pass. And she’s come to it wearing a cloak of owlcloth …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/14/nettle-and-bone-by-t-kingfisher/
How can it be that there are only two collections of stories by Maureen F. McHugh? And now I have read them both. She has published two more novels that I haven’t read yet, but after that I have to hope for a new book, which as far as I can tell has not happened …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/13/mothers-and-other-monsters-by-maureen-f-mchugh/
The cover of After the Apocalypse looks crinkled and dog-eared, as if the calamities within its pages have begun to seep out into the world beyond. The clock on the book’s cover is set to a few minutes after midnight, a reminder that after the worst has happened, things go on for at least some …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/07/after-the-apocalypse-by-maureen-f-mchugh/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire