Jul 03 2020
So on the one hand, a tale of courtly intrigue in the dazzling court of a foreign empire as seen through the eyes of a vulnerable young ambassador from a much poorer nation. In space! Based on Aztec-Byzantine history and practices instead of your standard Western Europe-Asian influences! Mahit Dzmare is from Lsel Station (modeled …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/03/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-1-by-arkady-martine/
Jun 10 2020
Yes, I am totally here for open border advocacy allegories, sci-fi tales that center non-white perspectives and experiences, and sly critiques of racism, overt or otherwise! Dr Freedom Chukwuebuka is five months pregnant when she abruptly leaves Lagos to return to New York City. She leaves behind a clinic where she treated both humans and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/10/laguardia-by-nnedi-okorafor-tana-ford/
May 11 2020
Ah, if only, if only. I’ve enjoyed enough romance novels to be able to differentiate between the wonderful modern-day version and the traditional version described by Sir Walter Scott, and only sometimes do the twain meet in ways more convincing than mere bad plotting. It’s bittersweet to feel that this charming tale of the First …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/11/red-white-royal-blue-by-casey-mcquiston/
Dec 20 2019
Before he became a famous foreign correspondent, Ryszard Kapuściński wrote a series of astonishing dispatches for the weekly newspaper Polityka from Poland’s small towns and backwaters. Poland in 1959 still bore many visible scars of the war that had ravaged it a decade and a half previous. With Stalin’s death in 1953 the worst excesses …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/12/20/nobody-leaves-by-ryszard-kapuscinski/
Nov 27 2019
I was super excited to get a chance to chat with Lauren Duca, the witty, outspoken and occasionally controversial author of How To Start A Revolution, an accessible guide to fostering greater political engagement that’s also a brilliant look at the present-day alienation of the American voter. We talked about her book, politics, David Sedaris …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/27/an-interview-with-lauren-duca-author-of-how-to-start-a-revolution/
Nov 26 2019
“Becoming Us,” the second part of Michelle Obama’s memoir tells how two very different people, two nearly polar opposite people in fact, came not only to love and cherish one another but to build a life and a partnership that would work from Chicago to the whole world. One of their first social functions together, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/26/more-becoming-by-michelle-obama/
Nov 17 2019
If Legacy of Ashes were a record album, Tim Weiner would surely have titled it The CIA’s Greatest Shits. As it is, the subtitle is The History of the CIA, which is a misnomer right off the bat because it’s a history and not the history, and as a history it’s mostly a litany of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/17/legacy-of-ashes-by-tim-weiner/
Nov 08 2019
I’m not one of those people who enjoys underlining inspiring/meaningful passages in a book but oh wow, was I tempted to here! Full disclosure, I am an old. While born at the tail end of Gen X, I find myself often exhibiting trademark Millennial behavior, likely because I grew up overseas and am unafraid of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/11/08/how-to-start-a-revolution-young-people-and-the-future-of-american-politics-by-lauren-duca/
Oct 29 2019
(with colors by the amazing Mary Cagle) As an open borders absolutist, I’ve been wanting a book like this to come along for years. Living in the USA, it’s almost mind-boggling that people aren’t more inclined towards immigration, given that the contiguous 48 states are one of the world’s best modern examples of the free …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/29/open-borders-the-science-and-ethics-of-immigration-by-bryan-caplan-zach-weinersmith/
Oct 20 2019
I mean, it’s not the worst Man Booker winner I can think of. If for nothing else, I do appreciate Milkman for being the first Northern Irish fiction I’ve read that I can remember: I’ve read plenty of stuff from Ireland but never from “over-the-border” so this was very illuminating. As someone born on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/10/20/milkman-by-anna-burns/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire