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Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist by Iosif Shklovsky Translated and adapted by Mary Fleming Zirin and Harold Zirin Introduction by Herbert Friedman W. W. Norton & Company: 1991 ISBN: 0-393-02990-5I don’t post on all the nonfiction I read but I enjoy passing on some of the offbeat books […]
Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin Translated by Marian Schwartz Open Letter Books: 506 pages, paperback ISBN: 9781934824368Add me to the chorus praising Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin. The funny thing about saying it’s a chorus is that the novel probably means different things to each reviewer. There are some clear themes throughout the novel and I’ll focus […]
His Only Son by Leopoldo Alas Translation and introduction by Julie Jones Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press (1981) ISBN 0-8071-0759-xHis Only Son proves to be a difficult novel to describe but one that should be every bit as notable as La Regenta. Or rather, every bit as notable as La Regenta **should** be. Once […]
In His Only Son, Alas has drawn some remarkable characters. Emma Valcárcel, the wife of Bonifacio Reyes (Bonis), almost steals the novel. As I mentioned in the previous post, the names often provide either meaning or irony in Alas’ work. Emma’s name may recall Emma Bovary, but as I mentioned in the previous post that […]
Continuing the story of His Only Son…Part One can be found in this post. Bonifacio Reyes finds himself in a dilemma. First he was unfaithful to his wife with Serafina, the soprano of the visiting opera troupe. His wife’s unexpected advances one evening cause him to be an unfaithful lover, too. Bonis didn’t know…no one […]
Often dismissed as Leopoldo Alas’ only other finished novel after La Regenta, His Only Son (1890) stands on its own and is a delight to read. Much less sweeping in scope than La Regenta, Alas remains the critic in His Only Son, targeting many of the same topics for judgment and satire as in the […]
AfterIf you made cherry cordials based on my post back in May, I can report that they are wonderfully ready. If you didn’t, take advantage of the next cherry season and enjoy! Before
The title may be a little unfair—each of these books have been recommended by others, too. As it were, though, I came to each of these books based on his recommendations, either at A Commonplace Blog, during his stint at Commentary, or from his Twitter feed. I’m glad he recommended them and I’m happy to […]
Bluegrass Bluesman by Josh Graves Edited by Fred Bartenstein, Forward by Neil Rosenberg University of Illinois Press, 2012 (176 pages, paperback) ISBN: 978-0-252-07864-4If you would like an alternative to the rock autobiographies piling up lately I’ve got a recommendation. Josh Graves (1927–2006), the legendary Dobro player, gave several interviews over the last ten to fifteen […]
The Russian writer Anatoly Mariengof is probably more famous today for his friendship with the poet Sergei Yesenin (Esenin) but the novella Cynics proves to be a powerful work that I found both enjoyable and disturbing. Published in Berlin in 1928 by Petropolis, the book was banned in Russia and not available there until 1988. […]