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

Halfway There

This spring, the German newspaper whose web site isn’t quite as bad as another’s began publishing a series of 50 Great Novels from the Twentieth Century. It’s an admirable project in many ways — not least a cover price of EUR 4.90 per hardback. Thirty-seven books have been published so far, and I’ve now read …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/12/17/halfway-there/

49 Great Ones and a Stinker

Not too long ago, I noted that the Sueddeutsche Zeitung was publishing a set of 50 great novels of the twentieth century. I got into the game a little bit late, but since then I have been more-or-less keeping up with their pace of one a week, largely by the not terribly edifying expedient of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/07/07/49-great-ones-and-a-stinker/

A Little Greatness, Every Week

The editors at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung cobbled together a list of 50 great novels of the 20th century. With postwar German modesty, they don’t claim that it’s exhaustive, definitive or representative. Just 50. And great. The newspaper’s publishing house has been bringing one out every week since mid-March, and they’ll finish the run next February. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/06/24/a-little-greatness-every-week/

V S Naipaul

Last year, reading around a bit to try to come to grips with Islamic terrorism, and the mindset that drives it, I read Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples. Published in 1998, it’s a bit of a seqel to Among the Believers, which was written in the wake of Iran’s revolution of 1979 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/03/27/v-s-naipaul/