Mathematician Ulrich has no qualities in the sense that his self-awareness is completely divorced from his abilities. Real life is an inconvenience. He dwells in the realm of ideas. His ambivalence towards morality and the world around him stem from the essential hollowness of his nature. He is therefore an unlikely candidate to be drawn into a […]
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil Read More »
Dame Lettie Colston, 79 and pioneer penal reformer, has much in common with the elderly residents of the Maud Long Medical Ward. All are united by scorn, resentment, boredom – and the humour that masks the awareness of impending death. Then the insidious telephone calls begin. Retired Chief Inspector Henry Mortimer posits the theory that
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark Read More »
My Antonia (1918) is the wistful tale of an immigrant girl from Bohemia, who has settled on the virgin prairies of Nebraska in order to farm. Narrated by Antonia’s childhood friend Jim Burden, the novel draws heavily upon Willa Cather’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willa_Cather) own formative years, as well as, through the persona of Jim, Cather’s experience of New York, where
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Ann Radcliffe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Radcliffe) published this very early horror/thriller in 1794, establishing the popularity of the Gothic. Beautiful young heiress Emily St. Aubert is frightened when she finds herself orphaned and in the hands of her cold and distant aunt, Madame Cheron. But her fear turns to terror when Madame Cheron agrees to marry the haughty and
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe Read More »
This 1956 Arabic work from Naguib Mahfouz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahfouz,_Naguib) is the first volume of his masterful Cairo Trilogy. It was translated into English in 1990. A national best-seller in both hardcover and paperback, Palace Walk introduces the engrossing saga of the Muslim al-Jawad family in Cairo during Egypt’s occupation by British forces during, and just after, the First World War. The modern day reader (I write
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Bill Bryson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson) offers us an education in science within one volume. Written in an entertaining style his approach to the subject matter is through the lives of the scientists who made the discoveries. The tone is conversational and the explanation assisted by homely metaphor. Bryson interviews leading researchers in their fields and reveals many an amusing
A Short History of Nearly Everything Read More »
This 1982 work from Thomas Keneally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Keneally) is not so much historical fiction as fiction written in the service of history. Keneally takes great trouble to stick to the documented facts about The Holocaust. The result is a powerful evocation of the full horror of what happened within living memory, namely the greatest crime in human history.
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The advent of the First World War brought about the end of a whole way of life in the Scottish countryside that had persisted for perhaps a thousand years. With technological change picking up pace as well, the old patterns were swept away. It was a ‘sunset song’ for a harsh yet beautiful existence. In this novel of 1932
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This is the 2012 offering of ‘chick lit’ purveyor Sophie Kinsella. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Kinsella) and (http://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk/) The summary goes as follows. Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her ‘happily ever after’ begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring
I’ve got your number Read More »
