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 08 2023
Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate! I am so pleased to have a whole slew of Hanukkah-themed books to review for the week, tho I gotta say that it is sometimes really weird talking about books centered on religion when you’re as quasi-religious as I am. I decided to start this slate with the most …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/08/the-story-of-hanukkah-by-david-a-adler-jill-weber/
Dec 05 2023
Hi readers! Here we have a different kind of autobiography, as an author chronicles what it felt like to grow up with two very different men, switching between father and stepfather every weekend. As his credit card industry pioneer stepfather’s career rises and his well-known radio actor biological father’s eases downward, author Anthony J. Mohr …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/05/every-other-weekend-coming-of-age-with-two-different-dads-by-anthony-mohr-excerpt/
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/
Oct 26 2023
I continue to be impressed by the breadth, depth and humanity Fabrice Erre and Sylvain Savoie show in their long-running series on famous historical figures and events. This thirteenth volume of the children’s illustrated series focuses on Marie Skłodowska Curie, who did so much and fought so hard to be able to help people and, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/10/26/magical-history-tour-vol-13-marie-curie-a-life-in-science-by-fabrice-erre-sylvain-savoie/
Sep 30 2023
World War II in Europe began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in the early days of September 1, 1939. Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Less than three weeks later, the Nazis and the Soviets had conquered all of Poland. They divided the country between them according to the secret …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/30/lost-time-lectures-on-proust-in-a-soviet-prison-camp-by-jozef-czapski/
Sep 16 2023
More properly: The Writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a Squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania edited, translated, with an introduction and notes by Catherine S. Leach because a title appropriate to the era is important. If Sir John Falstaff walked off of Shakespeare’s stage and wrote his memoirs, they would read a lot …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/16/memoirs-of-the-polish-baroque-by-jan-chryzostom-pasek/
Aug 29 2023
Long-time readers here will know that I’m a huge mythology aficionado, so when I say that this book taught me so much that I didn’t already know about the history and myth of Britain, that is no mean feat! The book started out pretty roughly, for me, as I tried to settle into the somewhat …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/29/storyland-a-new-mythology-of-britain-by-amy-jeffs/
Aug 27 2023
If you worked for a while in an oil refinery in Louisiana in, say, the mid-1980s (as I did), part of your orientation was hurricane training. The briefing I attended noted that there are two places on earth where the combination of low elevation, coastline shape, concentrated population, limited escape routes, location relative to wind …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/27/katrina-a-history-1915-2015-by-andy-horowitz/
Jul 21 2023
S.A. Chakraborty spends the first fifty or so pages of The City of Brass creating an alternative fantasy Cairo that’s so multifaceted, so lively, so enthralling and exciting that I never really reconciled to the characters’ departure. Sure, Daevabad is the fabled City of Brass. It’s full of djinn in all of their different clans; …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/21/the-city-of-brass-by-s-a-chakraborty/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire