Dec 31 2023
Introducing her translation of The Iliad, Emily Wilson gets right to the heart of the matter. “The beautiful word minunthadios, ‘short-lived,’ is used of both Achilles and Hector, and applies to all of us. We die too soon, and there is no adequate recompense for the terrible, inevitable loss of life. Yet through poetry, the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/31/the-iliad-translated-by-emily-wilson/
Dec 30 2023
Samantha Power was a writer before she went into public service. And even though she’s been America’s ambassador to the United Nations, and is now serving as the chief of the US Agency for International Development, it’s possible — maybe even probable — that she’s a better writer than anything else. Which means that even after …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/30/the-education-of-an-idealist-by-samantha-power/
Dec 29 2023
Peter Grant, one of two official wizards of the London police force, owes his life to Lady Tyburn, one of the genius loci of the city’s numerous rivers. So when she wakes him with a pre-dawn phone call to say that one of her daughter’s friends has had an accident — the “fatal” is unstated …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/29/the-hanging-tree-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Dec 28 2023
System Collapse has a great ending, possibly the best yet in Martha Wells’ wonderfully engaging Murderbot series. I emphasize that because I was a little lost at the beginning of the short novel, though that was mostly my fault. The story in System Collapse picks up immediately after the end of Network Effect, which was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/28/system-collapse-by-martha-wells/
Dec 26 2023
The last time there was a new book by Patrick Rothfuss to write about, The Frumious Consortium was a new project,and Laura reviewed The Slow Regard of Silent Things faster than the rest of the crew. She had strong ideas and took issue with common views coming out of fandom. She set the naysayers straight: …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/26/the-narrow-road-between-desires-by-patrick-rothfuss/
Dec 25 2023
Luke 2:1-14, Old English: 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 …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/25/merry-christmas-3/
Dec 24 2023
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 …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/24/thats-dickens-with-a-c-and-a-k-the-well-known-english-author-3/
Dec 20 2023
Holly Golightly knew how to make an impression. That’s the first impression that Truman Capote wants his readers to come away with. Years after Capote’s unnamed first-person narrator last saw Holly, he drops everything to go see a bar owner who called him out of the blue after not being in contact for quite a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/20/breakfast-at-tiffanys-by-truman-capote/
Dec 01 2023
and illustrated by Bernd Kissel, subtitled “Du würdest es eh nicht glauben” — You Wouldn’t Believe it Anyway This second volume of the kangaroo comics concludes the hardback publication of the odd couple’s 2020–23 run in Germany’s leading intellectual weekly newspaper. There are some nice touches in the two volumes: the first is dedicated “For …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/01/die-kanguru-comics-2-written-by-marc-uwe-kling/
Nov 26 2023
Right up front I should say that Henry Farrell, one of the authors of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, is a friend from graduate school. Part of me read this book the way one would read a draft of a friend’s project — not that Henry has ever wanted or needed my …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/26/underground-empire-by-henry-farrell-and-abraham-newman/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire