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 …
Category: Doug
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/22/catching-up-with-greatness/
Apr 18 2005
Very Old Europe
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 …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/18/very-old-europe/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/11/slowsilver/
Apr 08 2005
As Trains Go By
The New Republic has published a long review of three novels by Georges Simenon. The thesis is that they are “are superb and polished works of art masquerading as pulp fiction.” Simenon wrote more than 400 novels, under his own name and various pseudonyms. One of them, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/08/as-trains-go-by/
Apr 05 2005
A Little Less Magical
I’m not sure what possessed the editors of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung to add Somerset Maugham’s The Magician to their list of 50 great novels of the twentieth century. In the preface to the edition that I have, the author admits that when it was republished, he had not read the book in nearly fifty years. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/04/05/a-little-less-magical/
Mar 06 2005
Echelon Back Story
The British edition of Body of Secrets, James Bamford’s second book about the US National Security Agency, gives equal billing to Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the subtitle, but that’s just marketing, making the home audience feel good. The same subtitle also alludes to Echelon, an eavesdropping program that was on its way to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/03/06/httpfistfulofeuros-netafoeechelon-back-story/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/02/28/if-on-a-winters-night-a-publisher/
Feb 11 2005
Ray Bradbury
Through a series of stupidities, when I moved from Washington to Germany, I lost a fair number of books. Several hundred, I think, but it’s a little too sad to count them up. There was, and still may be, a list I made when packing. An indulgent winter evening’s thought is which one I would …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/02/11/ray-bradbury/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/02/07/a-note/
Dec 17 2004
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 …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2004/12/17/halfway-there/
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