Oct 21 2026
subtitled The Chess Match That Changed the World. I am really glad that Grandmaster Maurice Ashley was involved in the making of this book and wrote a really thoughtful Author’s Note at the end, because otherwise I would have probably Gone Off in this review. Which isn’t to say that this book is bad at …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/10/21/mind-vs-machine-by-steve-sheinkin-maurice-ashley-thien-pham/
Sep 19 2026
Victor Sebestyen offers a readable, one-volume history of Budapest from its Roman beginnings as Aquincum (plus a little more than a page on pre-Roman findings) through the time of the book’s publication in 2022, although it is very light on the years after the anti-communist uprising of 1956. Out of the book’s 377 pages, the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/09/19/budapest-by-victor-sebestyen/
Aug 19 2026
subtitled …And What REALLY Happened. Forgive me for saying this in an incredibly brainrotted manner, but I highkenuinely feel that this book should be in every library accessible to American children. Preferably in physical format, for even as an adult, I did not have an easy time navigating the digital version. Regardless, this slender volume …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/08/19/americas-founding-myths-by-christy-mihaly-marta-sevilla/
Jun 07 2026
The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Related Work — which isn’t called the Hugo Award for Everything Else but at this stage in its evolution maybe should be — hews closer to its bookish roots this time around. Four of six finalists are books, or at least very book-like, with a podcast and a spreadsheet rounding …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/07/hugo-awards-2026-best-related-work/
Jun 04 2026
First of all, best wishes to the author, who has hopefully overcome the bout of ill health that affected the completion of this fabulous book! I’m a huge fan of non-fiction for children, as it’s often the most elegant and efficient way of communicating a factual subject. Authors in this field, and especially the more …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/04/notre-dame-the-worlds-cathedral-by-lynn-curlee/
May 12 2026
As a third culture kid myself, this book means a lot to me, as it beautifully captures and explains the experience of belonging to more than just one place and culture. Told in the first person, this charmingly illustrated children’s book is essentially the story of author Rashmi Sirdeshpande and her family. Her parents emigrated …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/12/this-is-who-i-am-by-rashmi-sirdeshpande-ruchi-mhasane/
May 10 2026
In its 152 pages of main text, A Scandal in Königsberg gives readers a study in religious weirdness, jealousies within small-city elites, the hazards of mixing church and state, bureaucracies and their tendencies towards compromise regardless of facts, and finally the unknowability of some parts of history. Conversely, it is a testimony to what can …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/10/a-scandal-in-konigsberg-by-christopher-clark/
Apr 29 2026
subtitled A Comic Book Cocktail Book. This is, bar none, one of the best illustrated reference guides to learning about and making cocktails for beginners that I’ve ever seen. Sarah Becan’s approach to mixology is as refreshing as some of the drinks she features in this volume, and I say that both as someone who …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/29/lets-make-cocktails-by-sarah-becan/
Apr 18 2026
City of Oranges, which was published in 2006, must have been a difficult book to write, even in the comparatively less fraught time of the early 2000s. Adam LeBor — whom I knew a little bit many years ago in Budapest, so I will refer to him as Adam — attempts an open-minded and honest reckoning with …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/18/city-of-oranges-by-adam-lebor/
Mar 21 2026
Once Upon a Russia, which carries the subtitle “Voices from a Vanished Era,” collects slightly more than 100 short essays from Westerners who lived and worked in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s a personal project, born of a 2024 reunion with a friend and colleague that “unfolded into hours of nostalgic …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/21/once-upon-a-russia-edited-by-steven-a-fisher/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire