philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: May 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html
Honore de Balzac - The Country Doctor. Julian Barnes - Flauberts Parrot. Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Honore de Balzac - The Country Doctor. A long middle section is another monologue recounting much of Napoleon's rule. Balzac was an overt Bonapartist, and his belief in the virtues of strong leadership, as opposed to weak democracy, are voiced by an old soldier. Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot. The parrot of the title is a slight macguffin, although t...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: December 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
Round up of 2008. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Round up of 2008. In 2008 I read 78 books, of which:. 27 were non fiction. 51 were fiction, of which. 17 were originally English. 15 were from French. 9 were from German. 2 were from Finnish. 2 were from Norwegian. 2 were from Hungarian. 1 was from Arabic. 1 was from Chinese. 1 was from Italian. 1 was from Czech. The best fiction were:. The Discovery of Slowness. The Lord Chandos Letter. By Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Targets for this year:.
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: September 2007
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Andrew Meier - Black Earth. Benjamin Markovits - Imposture. Richard Overy - Russias War. Malcolm Bradbury - To the Hermitage. Nikolai Gogol - Diary of a Madman and other storie. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Andrew Meier - Black Earth. Many of the chapters have an elegaic feel to them, examining the troubled past (Communism, gulags) and present (Chechnya, oligarchs), and there's little optimism felt. Maybe this is an accurate reflection o...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008/08/paul-torday-salmon-fishing-in-yemen.html
Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Clive James - Cultural Amnesia. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Anyway, I picked up his first novel with few expectations, to see what the fuss was about. And my conclusion is that I can see why people are reading it, but it certainly doesn't deserve the praise it's received. This sounds most amusing, thanks. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: October 2007
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
Irene Nemirovsky - Le Bal. Mike Atherton - Gambling. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Irene Nemirovsky - Le Bal. Nemirovsky was a highly popular French novelist in the 1930s, and several films were made from her works - two from Le Bal. One in French and one in German. Her current revival is due to the recent discovery and publication of an unfinished novel, Suite Francaise,. The first story, Le Bal,. It's evident that this is a young girl's fantasy, no doubt Nemirovsky's dream as she g...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: August 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Clive James - Cultural Amnesia. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Anyway, I picked up his first novel with few expectations, to see what the fuss was about. And my conclusion is that I can see why people are reading it, but it certainly doesn't deserve the praise it's received. Clive James - Cultural Amnesia. The book is a collection of essays, inspired by quotations from notable people, not all of them...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: February 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
Mark Abley - Spoken Here. VS Pritchett - Balzac. Guy de Maupassant - Notre Coeur. Rory Stewart - Occupational Hazards. Honore de Balzac - The Wild Asss Skin. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Mark Abley - Spoken Here. This book is subtitled Travels among threatened languages. This is a fascinating and well-written book. Abley's early apology was unnecessary - his research is admirably presented, and pertinent throughout, and he has a good grasp of the academic background to his subje...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: June 2007
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist. Nicholas Mosley - Time at War. Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss. Anita Desai - Fasting, Feasting. Martin Gardner - Did Adam and Eve have navels? Michael Chabon - The Final Solution. Peter Carey - Theft: A Love Story. Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness. Stefan Zweig - Fantastic Night and other stories. Matthew Kneale - When we were Romans. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist. He starts off with the...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: January 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Amelie Nothomb - Sulphuric Acid. Alberto Manguel - A Reading Diary. Lawrence Wright - The Looming Tower. Harry Matthews - The Journalist. Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip. Honore de Balzac - The Black Sheep. Arto Paasilinna - The Howling Miller. Guy de Maupassant - A Parisian Affair and Other St. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Amelie Nothomb - Sulphuric Acid. And returned there when older to work for a Japanese company, which is the basis for Fear and Trembling. The concentration camp setting...
philmarsden.blogspot.com
Bibliophil: March 2008
http://philmarsden.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
Emile Zola - The Kill. Michael Blake - A Thousand Faces. Alberto Manguel - A History of Reading. Emile Zola - The Fortune of the Rougons. Charles Rosen - Piano Notes. Vertigo - a Sebald blog. View my complete profile. Emile Zola - The Kill. This book, the second in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, is so markedly different from the first that they could have been by different authors. Which is a very good thing, because the first was a bit of a struggle, and this was exceptionally good. Farming ( La Terre.
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT