Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
OK, trying to get my posting legs again… Shin Dong-hyuk (born Shin In Guen) was born in a North Korean political prison camp and lived there until he escaped at the age of 23. He eventually made his way to South Korea and the United States. After I posted on Escape from Camp 14 by […]
Oh yeah, I signed up for FutureLearn’s course on Shakespeare’s Hamlet: text, performance, and culture. I’ll let you know how it goes. Join in! ABOUT THE COURSE: This course introduces the many ways in which Hamlet can be enjoyed and understood. Six weekly videos discuss the play’s fortunes in print, and its own representations of […]
Public Seminar has Andrei Platonov’s short story “Antisexus”, a provisional translation by Anna Kalashyan of an occasional piece by Platonov. In ‘Antisexus’ (1925-26), Platonov writes in a parodic vein about what Béatriz Préciado calls the sex-gender industrial complex. The production of gendered and sexualized bodies via technologies of the image and the orgasm appears here […]
I’d like to wish a happy new year to everyone. I’m looking forward to 2014 and I plan on showing my gratitude to all that stop by here by reinvigorating the blog. I’ve been reading a lot of interesting books lately and have many more lined up to read, so posting will resume soon. As […]
I read a fair share of out-of-print translations that I believe should be more widely available and I thought I would compile a slightly different “Top Ten” list for the year. You should be able to find these with a little digging or if you’re fortunate to have a library that provides inter-library services. There […]
Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden(Viking: New York City, 2012)ISBN: 978-0-670-02332-5 I had planned on reading three nonfiction books on North Korea this winter but everything got shuffled out of order when I impulsively grabbed Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s […]
The Bird that Swallowed its Cage: The Selected Writings of Curzio Malaparte Adapted and Translated by Walter Murch Afterword by Walter Weschler (Counterpoint: Berkeley: 2012) ISBN: 978-1619020610 I’ve written about Curzio Malaparte’s World War II ‘novel’ Kaputt. While I’m waiting for my library to get a copy of the recent NYRB Classics re-release of The […]
In the comments of my post on If This Is a Man Miguel of St. Orberose blog stole my intended opening for Anthony Sher’s performance in Primo: Primo Levi’s book is a monumental exposition of the concentration camp system, and also of the mentalities that developed inside these horrible places; extraordinary what the prisoners had […]
If This is a Man by Primo Levi Translated by Stuart Woolf Introduction by Paul Bailey Abacus (ISBN 978-0-349-10013-5) Primo Levi was 24 years old in the fall of 1943 when he was arrested with other members of the Italian resistance movement. Instead of being shot as a traitor, he confessed to being Jewish and […]
I’ve been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with the boys and we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. I highly recommend the unabridged Sterling illustrated edition pictured. They enjoy the rich watercolors by Robert Ingpen while I appreciate the quality feel of the book. Oh yeah…we’re enjoying the story, too. There are […]
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson Wheeler Publishing—Large Print edition; 2012; 781 pages ISBN: 978-141-448286 I’ll start with a “thank you” to Cynthia Haven at The Book Haven blog for her many posts on Adam Johnson and this novel. Her last post regarding the novel finally pushed me to look for it at my […]
While I was at Phipps Country Store in Pescadero, California today [sadly, it went out of business shortly after this post] I decided to take advantage of the available heirloom beans (beyond the several pounds I bought). It seemed a fitting setting for Wiesław Myśliwski’s A Treatise on Shelling Beans, forthcoming from Archipelago Books. A […]
We saw yesterday’s matinee of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play by Joe Landryat Shakespeare Santa Cruz and I want to recommend it to readers in the SF Bay area (and anyone visiting during its run). Information on the show can be found at the SSC site: Become the studio audience as just […]
Paul Cartledge spoke at the SPHS Autumn Lecture, Tuesday November 12th 2013 held at The Hellenic Centre in London. Thanks to David Meadows at rogueclassicism for posting a link to this lecture. My post on the book can be found here. “The story I have woven…is one of commemoration, of rivalry, classically ancient Greek rivalry […]
What the Emperor Cannot Do: Tales and Legends of the Orient by Vlas DoroshevichTranslated by Rowen Glie (in collaboration with Ronald M. Landau) and John DeweyGlas New Russian Writing: 2012 (Volume 53)ISBN 978-5-7172-0094-3 Earlier this year I expressed my admiration for the works of Anatoly Mariengof published by Glas (Cynics and A Novel Without Lies). […]
Blogger tells me this is my 1,000th post on this site. So I’ll pass along a picture I took today while the boys and I were touring the mining museum in New Almaden, California. I just wish I had a book with me to drop in the lending library. If you’d like to learn about […]
A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century by Benjamin Buford Williams Associated University Presses, Inc.: Cranbury, New Jersey, 1979 ISBN: 0-8386-2054-X This post is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ben and Marilyn Williams. I consider myself fortunate to have been friends of theirs. This study is a biographical, bibliographical, generic, critical, and chronological […]
Primo Levi’s Universe: A Writer’s Journey by Sam Magavern Foreword by Jonathan Rosen, Afterword by Risa Sodi Palgrave Macmillan: New York City, 2009 ISBN 978-0-230-60647-0 [W]hen we read all of Levi’s writings together, we find that he has woven a great and terrifying testament, one of the most vital bodies of work in modern literature. […]
I had tentative plans for November to post on American women authors but I was sidetracked, willingly, into reading more books by and about Primo Levi. I plan to post on If This Is a Man and The Truce and three movies (Primo Levi’s Journey, The Truce, and Primo Mysteries) during the month. I’ll start […]
I’ll have some posts soon on the books I’m reading but they will take a couple of days. In the meantime, here’s a perfect fall meal accompaniment. It takes a lot of time to prepare but I vouch that it is well worth it. Dial back the Chimayo pepper to your own taste. Blue Corn […]