Category Archives: History

Brueghelian Obsession

Posted on September 14, 2018 by

The fourth and last in a series of novels involving the search for lost art. But a new slant here: this novel is for adults. Headlong, Michael Frayn (1999), Picador, 342 pp. Remember that Rod Serling story, where the Nazi … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Mystery | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Unexpected endings

Posted on August 21, 2016 by

Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses, Bess Lovejoy (2013) Lovejoy gives us a list like no other: what happened to the mortal remains (bones, ashes, or otherwise) of historical figures, from Alexander the Great to Hunter S. … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, History, Macabre | Tagged | 2 Comments

History for the curious

Posted on August 11, 2016 by

Frances and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages (1978) A brief review here. Gies and Gies, famous for their intelligent books on Medieval Europe, provide a guide to the lives of women from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the … Continue reading →

Posted in History | 5 Comments

Spiritualism and the Mafia

Posted on August 5, 2016 by

Norman Lewis, Jackdaw Cake (1985) Here’s a life for you: Raised by your grandfather and three odd aunts. Reclaimed by your spiritualist parents when the aunts go doolally. Married into a Sicilian family (probably mafiosi), then separated from your partner by WWII … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, History, Memoir | Tagged | 2 Comments

Bigamous reading

Posted on March 25, 2016 by

When I haven’t the energy to read Proust, I read something else. In that respect, I’m no different from anyone else. But the other day my daughter commented on how strange it was that I was sitting on the couch reading … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Graphic Novel, History, Humorous, Little Free Library, Mystery, reading, Travel book | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Temporary obsession: AR

Posted on February 1, 2016 by

My latest obsession started two months ago with Christina Hardyment’s Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint’s Trunk, an excellent study of the sources, both geographic and human, for his famous books, with a satisfying number of illustrations as well. Fans probably … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Artist profile, History, Mystery, reading | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

This and that and some other things

Posted on January 22, 2016 by

For the past 3 weeks, it hasn’t been Radio WTWP (wall-to-wall Proust, with a tip of the hat to Prof. Peter Schickele) on my reading shelf. Here’s some other stuff I’ve been clearing out: Desmond Seward’s The Demon’s Brood, a 300-page bare-bones … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure, Graphic Novel, Historical fiction, History, reading | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments