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Several years ago I posted on Women of the Gulag: Portraits of Five Remarkable Lives by Paul R. Gregory. A moving and powerful book, Gregory detailed some of the problems that five Soviet women faced when victimized by the gulag system. I believe I first found out about the book from Cynthia Haven at The […]
Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk by John Doe, with Tome DeSavia and Friends Da Capo Press, 2016 Hardcover, 336 pages Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it’s never been told before. Authors John Doe and […]
Robert Chandler has a short article in The New Yorker on the censorship of Grossman’s book For a Just Cause (the recent English translation uses the title Grossman wanted—Stalingrad). The original publication process of the novel is a case study of Soviet editorial practices and censorship. Grossman worked on the manuscript from 1943 until 1949 […]
The poetry of Ronnie Lane…two songs that capture some challenging aspects of father/son dynamics. In a good way, at least to me.
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman Translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler NYRB Classics, 2019 Paperback, 1088 pages Judging by how limited my time was yesterday and only making my way through Robert Chandler’s introduction to Stalingrad, this may be a true “summer(-long) read” for me. And I’m fine with that. A few quick notes on […]
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff Yale University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 424 pagesStalingrad by Vasily Grossman is officially released today. While I’m waiting for my copy to arrive by mail, I wanted to share a little about this outstanding biography. Alexandra Popoff has written several literary biographies and is a former Moscow […]
“The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s’ Most Decadent College” by Lili Anolik, Esquire Fall, 1982. A new freshman class arrives at arty, louche, and expensive Bennington College. Among the druggies, rebels, heirs, and posers: future Gen X literary stars Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jonathan Lethem. What happened over the next four […]
What to do with students in the summer? When they were younger, it was fairly easy. Take them to the pool. Get together with friends. Go to summer camps and amusement parks. Take them on trips. Wear them out, somehow. For school? If you wanted, you could do the summer “bridge” activities books, but of […]
My oldest expressed interest in seeing The Cold Blue tonight instead of waiting for it on HBO, and who was I to say no? So we’re excited about going tonight for the movie and the extra “making of” short. Plus I’m happy to see the score is provided by Richard Thompson. A good article on […]
In the Books section of each weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal is a list of “five best books” on a particular topic. I’ve found some good leads on books I’d like to read every now and then from this feature. This past weekend edition had a list from Alexandra Popoff, former Moscow journalist and […]
Picture from Old Maps, Expeditions, and Explorations blog The Voynich manuscript has been in the news off and on over the past few years. From Wikipedia: The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), […]
I’ve only read a few things by Karl Ove Knausgård, and it’s been hit or miss on what I like and what hasn’t connected. One thing I did enjoy is his recent conversation with Tyler Cowen, which I saw linked at Marginal Revolution. The wide-ranging interview starts with a discussion of mimesis and ends with […]
It’s been a while since I’ve fallen out of love with baseball, but I still enjoy a good baseball movie. Here are a couple of films I’ve watched recently that I can highly recommend. Picture sourceThe first is The Catcher Was a Spy, based on the 1994 biography The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious […]
I feel like I need to apologize for blog silence lately. I’ll pass on the enjoyable find I stumbled across today on Shout Factory TV: Graham Parker And The Rumour: This Is Live. “Filmed for a scene in Judd Apatow’s 2012 motion picture This Is 40, Graham Parker & The Rumour: This Is Live presents […]
I just noticed that Legend of the Holy Drinker, based on Joseph Roth’s novella, is available to view for free on Amazon Prime. I loved Roth’s story and found this movie version with Rutger Hauer very well done. In one of his letters, Joseph Roth wrote, “There are miracles in my life, poor little miracles, […]
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou Alfred A. Knopf, 2018 Hardcover, 352 pagesBad Blood, the true story of the rise and collapse of a medical device start-up in Silicon Valley that blew through $900 million dollars on a product that never worked, was on many “Best Of” book […]
On the centenary of the end of First World War, Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) presents the World Premiere of an extraordinary new work showing the Great War as you have never seen it. This unique film brings into high definition the human face of the First World War as […]
Big Sur, California Highway 1, just north of Garrapata Creek Bridge: 12 January 2019 So that when later I heard people say “Oh Big Sur must be beautiful!” I gulp to wonder why it has the reputation of being beautiful above and beyond its fearfulness, its Blakean groaning roughrock Creation throes, those vistas when you […]
And now for something completely different… I’ve been slowly working my way through The Elements by Euclid and recreating the propositions. What a strange, nerdy thing to do, right? I’m not completely sure why I decided to do this, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. At the rate I’m going, it will take until the middle […]
And in 1790, he [Radishchev] wrote, anonymously, one of the immortal works of Russian literature: Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Nationalistic, insightful, mindful of the human condition, and understanding of the forces of human history, Radishchev envisioned a better world: His book was both a document and a pamphlet, the narrative of a simple […]