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
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire — 6 comments
- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch — 6 comments
- The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin — 6 comments
Author's posts
What to do when you haven’t finished a book but find yourself with something to say about it? Convention dictates that one should finish a book before reviewing it (although I have my doubts about any number of published reviews), but on the other hand, the market for reviews of revised editions of books on …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/02/06/premature-evaluation-on-the-brink-the-trouble-with-france/
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single quotation on the cover of a book is not a reliable guide to its contents. Nevertheless, when the quotation clearly comes from a review, and the review comes from a reasonably reputable newspaper, for such I imagine the Independent to be, some credence could be allowed. …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/12/18/terence-this-is-stupid-stuff/
Sorry, this is not a post proclaiming a political theory of everything. It’s a note saying “‘Tis done!” I picked up Neal Stephenson’s The System of the World sooner than I thought and finished it up right quick. Previous posts on the Baroque Cycle are here, here, here and here. The argument of the trilogy …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/11/24/the-system-of-the-world/
Malcolm Gladwell tells great stories. In Blink, his latest book, he relates how the Getty Museum nearly bought an amazing forgery, why Warren Harding became US president, how to tell if a married couple will divorce and why coronary care can improve if doctors have less information. The thesis is that humans have sophisticated systems …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/11/11/in-the-blink-of-a-t-shirt/
I’m probably the last blogger still reading Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, and chances are good that I won’t take on the third part, The System of the World, immediately after finishing the second, The Confusion. Not because the books aren’t good, just that it is a lot to read consecutively. The good news is that …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/10/12/the-con-fusion/
Don’t pick of a copy of Stasiland, by Anna Funder, if you have work to do. I did the first time, and I nearly missed a deadline. I did it again this morning, intending to write a review, and my productivity dropped like a rock again. Consider yourselves warned. It’s not exactly the kind of …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/07/20/stasiland/
With Turkish accession one of the most important issues facing the European Union, people interested in the question could do much worse than read these two recent, and reasonably short, books that focus on the country: Crescent and Star, by Stephen Kinzer, and The Turks Today, by Andrew Mango. Both illustrate and explain contemporary Turkey, …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/07/18/two-on-turkey/
Because some of them undoubtedly did, even people who knew him quite well. In his heyday, millions professed their love, sang his praises. Even those he had condemned in show trials, or in no trials, wrote to him of their devotion, wrote of their faithfulness, wrote of their belief. Perhaps they meant it, perhaps it …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/06/24/joseph-vissarionovich-and-the-people-who-loved-him/
Not mine, of course, the 50 novels from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung‘s list. Since several of my recent book reviews have been negative or lukewarm, I’ll say here above the fold that the latest batch has indeed brought me in touch with literary greatness. In the order I have read them, not of publication or anything …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/22/catching-up-with-greatness/
New work by Sophocles? Hesiod? Lucian? Euripides? A precursor to the Illiad? All coming up, thanks to satellitte imaging technology and a century-old trove of manuscripts brought to Britain from Egypt. In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod …
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/18/very-old-europe/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire