Category: Italy

Lent by Jo Walton

Lent by Jo Walton

In Lent, Jo Walton takes the life of Girolamo Savonarola both seriously and literally. Not only his life, the whole framework in which he lived that life: God, demons, Purgatory, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Dominican Order to which Savonarola was dedicated, his desire to create a new Jerusalem in Italy, and ever so …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/31/lent-by-jo-walton/

Structuring the State by Daniel Ziblatt

Die Linke

At the start of the nineteenth century’s second half, Germany and Italy were both patchworks of states; by century’s end, both were united kingdoms taking their place among Europe’s great powers. Similar ideas drove the leaders of unification in both regions, yet the states that emerged from the wars and negotiations were quite different. Though …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/03/structuring-the-state-by-daniel-ziblatt/

My Real Children by Jo Walton

My Real Children by Jo Walton

In 2015 Patricia Cowan has passed getting on in years and is definitely old. She’s reasonably well taken care of in the home where she lives now. She’s often confused, though, sometimes very confused, “VC” as it says in the notes the nurses and aides make. She’s not surprised, though; her mother struggled with dementia …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/06/22/my-real-children-by-jo-walton/

The Book Of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri

In all honesty, I can’t decide whether I liked that ending or not. It sorta demands more storytelling when this book is clearly complete as it is, and while I could not help but smile in satisfaction at the last word of the novel, I also felt — in hindsight and not, crucially, at the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/07/05/the-book-of-hidden-things-by-francesco-dimitri/