Thomas Mann
Quotes and Poppies for Veterans’ / Armistice Day
24 Festive Tasks: Door 17 – Veterans’ / Armistice Day, Task 1: Post a quote or a piece of poetry about the ravages of war. Here are three quotes from E.M. Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front: “Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea […]
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Books Read for School
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – World Philosophy Day, Task 4: Did you love or hate the books you had to read for school? Looking back, which ones (good or bad) stand out to you the most? By and large, I think it’s fairest to say “I didn’t mind” the books we read in […]
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My Favorite Books with Music as a Plot Element
24 Festive Tasks: Door 21 – Kwanzaa, Task 2: Music is an important part of a Kwanzaa celebration. Which is / are your favorite book(s) where music plays an important role in the plot? In no particular order, books (of all genres, except for artist biographies)* that I love where music plays an important […]
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My Historical Fiction Essentials
Finally getting around to this — as per Chris’s invitation, here’s my list (in no particular order, and with major reliance on Chris’s dictum that it’s “fine to list a whole author’s work or series and have it count as one entry”): Hillary Mantel’s historical fiction I’ve yet to try her contemporary writing, but both […]
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Crowdsourced: More Books with a Difference – Fiction
You asked, Moonlight Reader? To quote from one of my additional entries below: “As you wish …” Without any further ado: Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies When Lillelara added A Place of Greater Safety to her list, I could have kicked myself — because Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books were definitely among […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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A Book Stack / Scales Festivus Feat of Strength
24 Festive Tasks: Door 19 – Festivus, Task 3: Have your household scales perform a feat of strength: Place 10 of your heaviest books in a stack on your scales and tell us what their total weight comes to. The books I picked for this task: * My hardcover boxed set of Thomas Mann’s […]
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Book Rescue, Book-Related Places of Pilgrimage … and My Personal Literary Canon, Part 1
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – Mawlid, Task 2: The Five Pillars of Islam almsgiving and the pilgrimage to Mekka. Tell us: Have you ever donated books or rescued them from (horror of horrors) being trashed? Alternatively: Is there a book-related place that is a place of pilgrimage to you? If I donate books, I […]
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Birthday Monster Book Haul
… thanks to my mom, who gave me a bookstore gift card, my best friend, who raided my Amazon wish list (isn’t it nice to know your loved ones know just what you’ll be happiest about?) and a few odd things to which I treated myself: Die Briefe der Manns (The Mann Family Correspondence) — […]
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Fashionably Late to the Party – Reading Statistics: Top 10 Authors Read
… well, actually I know I am. Couldn’t be helped, though. Seriously. Besides, I couldn’t just show up like that, could I? And anyway: Now that I’m here, though … Top 10 Authors Read: Overall Agatha Christie: 157 William Shakespeare: 83 Arthur Conan Doyle: 61 Ngaio Marsh: 45 Ian Rankin: 42 Ellis Peters / Edith […]
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Thomas Mann: Dr. Faustus
A Reckoning This review is dedicated, in friendship and grateful memory, to the late Bob Zeidler, one of Amazon.com’s best and brightest customer reviewers. It is partly inspired by an exchange with Bob, whose comments hereon are sorely missed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Yes … we are lost. That is to say: the war is lost, but that […]
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