“We made the journey in 1997, at the end of October. The winter had set in early that year, and even St Petersburg had its first covering of snow. Outside the city, and especially as we travelled north, the snow had taken over the landscape completely, levelling the gentle contours of the forest floor and …
Category: Excerpt
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/02/night-of-stone-by-catherine-merridale/
May 09 2015
History is Weird
The second offspring of [Jewish] messianic hopes [in eighteenth century Poland] was Frankism—from the name of its founder, Jacob Frank (?–1791). Frank’s father had fled Poland to escape persecution as a follower of Sabbatai Zevi, and Jacob Frank himself traveled widely in Romania and Greece, where (in Salonika) he met those believers in Sabbatai who …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/09/history-is-weird/
May 01 2015
What Work Is by Philip Levine
What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is—if you’re old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/01/what-work-is-by-philip-levine/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/03/02/number-ten-ox/
Feb 05 2015
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield
This was a hoot. As the back cover says, “the Reduced Shakespeare Company‘s classic farce” presents, after a fashion, all 37 plays and does something to with the sonnets in just over 90 minutes of stage time. They do the comedies all at once, in a bit
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/05/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-abridged-by-adam-long-daniel-singer-and-jess-winfield/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/03/just-send-me-word-by-orlando-figes/
Oct 23 2011
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
“What do I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don’t care. The age of Atatürk is over.” Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye. “Atatürk was father of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/23/the-dervish-house-by-ian-mcdonald/
Jan 27 2010
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
Mostly in lieu of a proper review, excerpts from The Discovery of France by Graham Robb, the best non-fiction book I read in 2009. (Tough competition, too: In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak, Gold and Iron by Fritz Stern and To the Castle and Back by Vaclav Havel were all top …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2010/01/27/the-discovery-of-france-by-graham-robb/
Mar 01 2009
Sentence of the Day
For a small break from Brussels and the economic crisis: Nothing fades so quickly or so tackily as a Soviet resort. One of the lighter observations (on p. 139) from The Spirit-Wrestlers by Philip Marsden, a journey across southern Russia and the Caucasus in search of various religious non-conformists who fell afoul of both Russian …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/03/01/sentence-of-the-day/
Feb 19 2009
Aid Worker Shashlik
From Geert Mak’s visit to Sarajevo in 1999: Batinic leans over and looks me straight in the eye. ‘Tell me, Geert, honestly: what kind of people are you sending us anyway? The ones at the top are usually fine. But otherwise, with only a few exceptions, the people I have to deal with are third-class …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/02/19/aid-worker-shashlik/
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Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire