Goodbye to Berlin
Reading Isherwood brings you into a moment in history, and there’s something really powerful and rare about that.
Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
The interwar period spanned from 1918 (the end of World War I) to 1939 (the beginning of World War II, starting with the invasion of Poland). Works of this period deal with a variety of new themes — including the political and social aftermath of WWI, the economic boom of the Roaring Twenties, the economic crash of the Great Depression, the rise of Hollywood, the rise of Communism and Fascism on a world-wide scale, and the changing place of women in the world (suffrage).
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Reading Isherwood brings you into a moment in history, and there’s something really powerful and rare about that.
I do love a short novel. Not only do they reliably help me out of even the most prolonged of reading slumps, but short novels are where writers really shine. It takes a lot of skill to craft a narrative that is tight but still full of intent and power.
If you’ve never read Dorothy Parker, you are in for a real treat with this book. She’s a writer that was known just as much for the sharpness of her wit as for the products of her pen, and she is delightfully funny in that very special, dry, sarcastic way that I always love.
I was expecting, based on the title, to get a collection of purely Christmas, party, winter holiday, or holiday stories here. Instead, the book contains thirteen tales organized by month with two for December. Also? They are not all from the Jeeves and Wooster universe.
Caliban Shrieks has been described as somewhere between an autobiographical novel and a rant, and you know what? I actually agree with this statement.
He has been institutionalized and addicted to drugs for quite some time, and he feels that he is on the verge of losing his looks and his status as he continues to fail to meet expectations.
Though the subjects are varied, what remains is Akutagawa’s beautiful starkness and his precise use of prose. There is the feeling that cutting one word would be impossible, but adding one would be a shame.
Patrick Hamilton’s Rope is a subtle kind of spooky. It’s not a murder-mystery. The murder has happened and it is no mystery who did it.
For July, I’m going to take a deep dive into American crime noir novels from the 1930s to 1960s, give them a bit of context, and maybe mention a film or two along the way.
This week I’m going to review two McNally selections from earlier this year, both of which are delightful non-fiction reads that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen off the shelf.