By the time Blair Tindall gets to the skills analysis that tells her she’s terrible at logic and analysis, I was so frustrated with this book that I said aloud, “You got that right.” Other things she gets right in the book: the fly-on-the wall look at the life of a professional classical musician of …
Tag: History
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/17/mozart-in-the-jungle-sex-drugs-and-classical-music-by-blair-tindall/
May 15 2017
Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
Reader, I devoured this book on my road trip to visit my in-laws over Mother’s Day weekend. It is, as the author admits, something of a ridiculous novel: a contemporary of Jane Eyre’s contemplates the similarities between their lives even as she herself, the titular Jane Steele, solves problems by means of murder, and finds …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/15/jane-steele-by-lyndsay-faye/
May 01 2017
Tales of the Squee
The height of my to-be-read pile could be measured in years, if the books could somehow fit into a unified pile. And that doesn’t count a particular moving box in the basement, in which some really good books, or at least some really interesting-looking books are awaiting their turn to come upstairs. (Some of them …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/01/tales-of-the-squee/
Apr 25 2017
Germany: Memories of a Nation by Neil MacGregor
Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery in London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015. He is now Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. His best-known previous book is A History of the World in 100 Objects. That background goes a long …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/04/25/germany-memories-of-a-nation-by-neil-macgregor/
Apr 17 2017
Bohemian Gospel (Bohemian Gospel #1) by Dana Chamblee Carpenter
Readable, if highly problematic. And usually when the word “problematic” is bandied about, reviewers are considering subject matter or character/authorial point of view. My use of the word comes more from the way Dana Chamblee Carpenter has treated actual history in the service of her tale: abusively, to be blunt about it. Going off on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/04/17/bohemian-gospel-bohemian-gospel-1-by-dana-chamblee-carpenter/
Jan 03 2017
Landscapes of Communism by Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley places Landscapes of Communism at an intersection of several modes: serious but not academic architectural criticism; political and social history, as reflected in a region’s built environment; companion for both travellers and residents; and thoughts on living in cities shaped by different social systems. Hatherley writes early on that he uses the term …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/03/landscapes-of-communism-by-owen-hatherley/
Oct 05 2016
The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the guns fell silent, ending more than four years of terrible war in Europe. First as Armistice Day and later as Remembrance Day, European (and Commonwealth) countries even now commemorate the end of the First World War nearly a century after …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/10/05/the-vanquished-by-robert-gerwarth/
Sep 18 2016
The Return Of Sir Percival: Guinevere’s Prayer by S. Alexander O’Keefe
I’m not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, it’s an entertaining tale of Dark Ages Britain, with some really cool Roman/Byzantine/Middle Eastern history and politics thrown in. On the other, it’s a re-imagining of Arthurian lore which plays super fast and loose with established canon, and while it’s good reading, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/18/the-return-of-sir-percival-guineveres-prayer-by-s-alexander-okeefe/
Aug 12 2016
Moscow in Movement by Samuel A. Greene
Moscow in Movement examines how citizens and state power interact in post-Soviet Russia. Samuel A. Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London, looks at the lived experiences of Russians and considers several case studies carefully to show how individual Russians, elements of Russian society, and representatives of the Russian state form their …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/12/moscow-in-movement-by-samuel-a-greene/
Jun 20 2016
Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter is three hundred pages of wonderful, unadulterated squee. It’s a companion to the musical that I’ve been listening to nearly non-stop since last September, a documentation of the development of a show that’s clearly going into the canon of American theater and has already burst the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/06/20/hamilton-the-revolution-by-lin-manuel-miranda-and-jeremy-mccarter/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire