What did you read last month?

[wba]

March 2020

Das Buch Chons (Joachim Kupsch / 1967 / East Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Die Kartause von Parma – ein erotisch-orphischer Avantgarde-Roman (Michael Nerlich / 1982 / West Germany / German / German) - 6/10
Käthe Dorsch (Ludwig Berger / 1957 / West Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
The Other Side of the Hedge (E. M. Forster / 1911 / UK / English / English) - 7/10 ♥
Scastlivaja Moskva “Die glückliche Moskwa“ [fragment] [translated by Renate Landa, Lola Debüser, Jekatherina Lebedewa] (Andrei Platonov / 1930s, 1991 / Soviet Union / Russian / German) - 6/10
Where Angels Fear to Tread (E. M. Forster / 1905 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
Elia Kazan (Helga Belach, Wolfgang Jacobsen [editors] / 1996 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha Christie / 1920 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
A Happy Solution (Raymond Allen / 1916 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
Smith & Wesson [translated by Annette Kopetzki] (Alessandro Baricco / 2014 / Italy / Italian / German) - 6/10
Harald Braun. Ein Buch des Gedenkens. (Eckart-Verlag [publisher] / 1961 / West Germany / German / German) - 7/10

[josiahmorgan11]

MARCH 2020
Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
Payback, Margaret Atwood
Debt: The First 5000 Years, David Graeber
Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje
The German Ideology, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
The Cassandra Chronicles, Ariel Leve

Now-Reading:
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The William H. Gass Reader, William H. Gass [making a real, concerted effort to finish it this time - as a collection of shorts/essays, I've had it on the go for 2+ years now. With
1/3 of the text remaining, I'm really keen to make a push and shelve the thing this time -- he is a truly wondrous essayist, but it'll be nice to be able to pick up a new
book without knowing I'm stuck in the middle of something else]

[Curtis, baby]

awesome, that sounds right up my alley. hopefully the libraries and/or bookstores open up again soon so i can get at it... not really a fan of buying books without holding them first, but i may have to start ordering online soon as there's some stuff i'm dying to get to that i don't have on my rather meagre shelves

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

April 2020 readings

• Little Caesar: A Biography of Edward G. Robinson (Alan L. Gansberg)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton)
• The Invention of Love (Tom Stoppard)
• Sir William Temple, A Seventeenth Century "Libertin" (Clara Marburg)
• The Body in the Library (Agatha Christie)
• The Secret of the Old Clock (Mildred Wirt Benson; 1959 revision version by Harriet Adams)
• The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (Paul Krugman)
• Five Miscellaneous Essays (William Temple, edited by S.H. Monk)
• First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (Slavoj Zizek)
• "Volume One: Issue 1" (Journal of the History of Ideas) [I'm starting a project of reading the whole journal]

April always seems to be the least cruel month for my reading, though this year I hope to do better still in May

[brian d]

marketa lazarová (vladislav vančura) [reread] ****
guilty (anna kavan) ***
theogony/works and days (hesiod) [reread] *****
dance with serpents (horacio castellanos moya) [reread] *****
the people of paper (salvador plascencia) [reread] *****
the return of the native (thomas hardy) [reread] *****
the pickwick papers (charles dickens) **
imaginary lives (marcel schwob) **
the massacre of the innocents (giambattista marino) **

lots of rereads that were very good. lots of new reads that weren't very exciting. hopefully next month is better.

[Curtis, baby]

actually did decently for once

APR (7)
growing up absurd (paul goodman) - 8/10
dead girls (nancy lee) - 10/10
the vagabond (colette) - 9/10
one, no one and a hundred thousand (luigi pirandello) - 9/10
the journals of susanna moodie (margaret atwood) - 8/10
a room of one’s own (virginia woolf) - 7/10
stoner (john williams) - 10/10

[Holymanm]

April:

Hermann Hesse - Singapore Dream and Other Adventures (~1911) - 4/5
Jules Verne - A Fantasy of Dr Ox (1872) - 3/5
Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island (1883) - 4/5
Pär Lagerkvist - Pilgrim at Sea (1962) - 4/5
Alexander Pope et al. - Scriblerus (1741) - 4/5
Émile Zola - Dead Men Tell No Tales (1876-1880) - 3.5/5
Astrid Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking (1945) - 2.5/5
Jean Webster - Daddy-Long-Legs (1912) - 2/5
Ivan Turgenev - Smoke (1867) - 4/5

[wba]

April 2020

Rosenemil (Georg Hermann / 1935 / Netherlands / German / German) - 7.5/10
L‘homme qui regardait passer les trains “Der Mann, der den Zügen nachsah“ [translated by Ulrike Ostermeyer] (Georges Simenon / 1938 / France / French / German) - 6/10
Ferdydurke [second, new version] [translated by Walter Tiel, Rolf Fieguth, Hilde Fieguth] (Witold Gombrowicz / 1956 / Poland / Polish / German) - 8/10
Der selbstbewusste Hochstapler in Walter Serners Tigerin (Katharina Kretzschmar / 2009 / Germany / German / German) - 5.5/10
Der etruskische Spiegel (Georg Hermann / 1936 / Netherlands / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Le galline pensierose “Die nachdenklichen Hühner“ [translated by Elke Wehr] (Luigi Malerba / 1980 / Italy / Italian / German) - 6.5/10

[wba]

May 2020

Bonjour tristesse [translated by Helga Treichl] (Francoise Sagan / 1954 / France / French / German) - 6/10
Der Sandmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann / 1816 / Berlin / German / German) - 6.5/10
Buster Keaton [translated by Various] (Helga Belach, Wolfgang Jacobsen [editors] / 1995 / Germany / German [and others] / German) - 6.5/10
Die Maringotte (Max Krell / 1919 / Germany / German / German) - 5.5/10
Il viaggo a roma “Die Reise nach Rom“ [translated by Dora Winkler] (Alberto Moravia / 1988 / Italy / Italian / German) - 6.5/10
Ignaz Denner (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann / 1816 / Berlin / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
The Taming of the Shrew “Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung“ [translated by Wolf Heinrich Graf von Baudissin] (William Shakespeare / ca. 1590s / England / English / German) - 6.5/10
Prisma. Kino- und Fernseh-Almanach 11 (Horst Knietzsch [editor] / 1980 / East Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Die Toten (Christian Kracht / 2016 / Germany / German / German) - 4/10
Die Jesuitenkirche in G. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann / 1816 / Berlin / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Fox 8 (George Saunders / 2013 / USA / English / English) - 6/10
Budo-pan “Rosinenbrot“ [translated by Itsuko Gelbrich] (Yukio Mishima / 1963 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 5.5/10
The Flying Stars (Gilbert Keith Chesterton / 1911 / UK / English / English) - 6.5/10
Das Sanctus (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann / 1816 / Berlin / German / German) - 6.5/10
Nachtstücke. Erster Theil. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann / 1816 / Berlin / German / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
The Comedie of Errors “ Die Komödie der Irrungen“ [translated by Wolf Heinrich Graf von Baudissin] (William Shakespeare / ca. early 1590s / England / English / German) - 6.5/10
The Lady of the Shroud (Bram Stoker / 1909 / UK / English / English)- 7.5/10
Chroniques 1. Un Roi sans Divertissement “Chroniken 1. Ein Mensch allein” [translated by Caroline Vollmann] (Jean Giono / 1947 / France / French / German) - 8.5/10
Le dernier jour d’un condamne “Der letzte Tag eines Verurteilten” [translated by W. Scheu] (Victor Hugo / 1829 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Sana no ichigo “Erdbeeren“ [translated by Ekkehard Gelbrich] (Junnosuke Yoshiyuki / 19?? / Japan / Japanese / German) - 3.5/10
Bürger Schippel (Carl Sternheim / 1913 / Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10

[brian d]

the questionnaire (jirí gruša) ***
house of leaves (mark danielewski) **
love (stendhal) ***
mr fortune (sylvia townsend warner) ****
a cabinetmaker's notebook (james krenov) *****
the eclogues and georgics (virgil) ****
the trumpet-major (thomas hardy) ****
the ruin of kasch (roberto calasso) **

[Curtis, baby]

NO BOOKS!! NONE!!! like half of "to the lighthouse"...

[rischka]

throw away your books! rally in the streets!

[Holymanm]

A Damsel in Distress (P.G. Wodehouse, 1919) - 3.5/5
Trees on a Slope (Hwang Sun-won, 1960) - 3.5/5
Singapore Dream and Other Adventures (Hermann Hesse, ~1911) - 4/5 (5/5 for the short story Robert Aghion on its own)
Barbuchín (Daniel Armas, 1941) - N/A

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

A good reading month. Read 8 books, some for therapy and some academic philosophy work. Of literature and film-related stuff:

• Meditations in an Emergency (Frank O'Hara) — Playful poesy, highlighted by movie-themed verse including my fav 'To the Film Industry in Crisis'
• What Is Cinema? (Andre Bazin, translated by Timothy Barnard for Caboose) — An introductory collection of 13 of Bazin's most important pieces; one of the best, most thought-provoking works I've read about movies
• The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey) — Historical research as cosy mystery; quite entertaining, despite its snarky contempt for professional historians
• Selected Poems (Margaret Cavendish, NYRB) — playful 17th century pop-science poems, a mixed bag, but some memorable ones

[brian d]

margaret cavendish is cool, i've taught one of her plays several times. and she's the first science fiction novelist (or proto-novelist), even before mary shelley. i've never read any of her poetry though.

the sot-weed factor (john barth) ****
an enquiry concerning human understanding (david hume) ***
the conjure-man dies (rudolph fisher) ****
outlines of pyrrhonism (sextus empiricus) *****
a laodicean (thomas hardy) [reread] ****
the color curtain (richard wright) ****

[mesnalty]

The Blazing World is absolutely wild, one of the oddest books ever written.

[nrh]

should get around to reading tey, we have a ton of her books in the house though unfortunately seema's ancient paperback copies of shilling for candles and brat farrar may not survive another reading

may -
the complete dying earth, jack vance
a king alone, jean giono
machines in the head, anna kavan
june -
elidor, alan garner
howard who?, howard walrdrop
labrava, elmore leonard
glitz, elmore leonard
freaky deaky, elmore leonard
a fairly honourable defeat, iris murdoch
the death ship, b. traven
dead astronauts, jeff vandermeer
there are doors, gene wolfe
the drawing of the dark, tim powers
the evening plays, richard maxwell

the giono is the highlight, close to favorite i've read from him, eerie story of murder in remote provencal countryside that slowly turns into something spooky and hard to pin down, shifting around through history and giono's usual attention to the natural world.

fascinated by the early work in the kavan without being sold on some of the later stories, should get around to finally reading her novels. reading the maxwell plays made me very nostalgic for going to theater...

[wba]

the giono is the highlight, close to favorite i've read from him, eerie story of murder in remote provencal countryside that slowly turns into something spooky and hard to pin down, shifting around through history and giono's usual attention to the natural world.

Seems like we accidentally read the same Giono in the same month (what an odd coincidence, after having read the same Stendhal in the same month as well ). Anyway, it was also my favorite read in May and my second favorite Giono book [a close second after "Horseman on the Roof"], though I've read only 6 so far - all pretty great, by the way. I loved every second of it, though the way it was structured in three distinct segments/acts was a bit odd. My favorite part was the first third, the murder story, followed by the last third. I also loved the short visit at the wife of the serial killer, where the protagonist is contemplating the portrait of the serial killer (though I can't quite remember if this was described in the second or the last third). The change of narrators was also done in fascinating ways.
I honestly must say that Giono sems to have become an even greater writer after WWII than he already was before, as the three novels of his I've read from the 1940s, 50s and 60s show a more sophisticated use of language and - strangely enough - a mastery of human psychology, or the mysteries of the human mind, that surpasses his work from the 20s and 30s with ease... Though the comparative "rawness" of his early stuff has much going for it as well, and the human portraits all seem already there in a kind of "in vitro" state, or maybe like a sketch which doesn't require further words...
But "A King alone" felt a bit like reading Dostoevsky and being shown the secrets of the human soul. (+ an added bonus for nature and natural phenomena, which are absolutely as central and essential as everything else for Giono).

PS: The book has also grown on me even further, since reading it. It is truly a phenomenal work of poetic writing!

[wba]

June 2020

Der Opfergang (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1911 / Germany / German / German) - 8/10
Sakai jiken “Der Zwischenfall in Sakai” [translated by Wolfgang Schamoni] (Ogai Mori / 1914 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7/10
L’horloger d’Everton “Der Uhrmacher von Everton” [translated by Ursula Vogel] (Georges Simenon / 1954 / France / French / German) - 6/10
Le paysan de Paris “Der Pariser Bauer” [translated by Lydia Babilas] (Louis Aragon / 1926 / France / French / German) - 5/10
Der Bücherdrache (Walter Moers / 2019 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Saigo no ikku “Das letzte Wort” [translated by Wolfgang Schamoni] (Ogai Mori / 1915 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 6.5/10
Kanzan Jittoku “Hanshan und Shide” [translated by Wolfgang Schamoni] (Ogai Mori / 1916 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7/10 ♥
Improvisatoren: Original Roman i to Dele “Der Improvisator” [translated by Jörg Scherzer] (Hans Christian Andersen / 1835 / Denmark / Danish / German) - 7/10 ♥
Des journées entières dans les arbres “Ganze Tage in den Bäumen” [translated by Werner Spies] (Marguerite Duras / 1965 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
L’Amant “Der Liebhaber” [translated by Ilma Rakusa] (Marguerite Duras / 1984 / France / French / German) - 7/10 ♥
L’Amant de la Chine du Nord “Der Liebhaber aus Nordchina” [translated by Andrea Spingler] (Marguerite Duras / 1991 / France / French / German) - 7/10
Der Überläufer [new, shortened version] (Wilhelm Lehmann / 1927, 1962 / (West) Germany / German / German) - 8.5/10

[Curtis, baby]

Only read one book but it was THE book of all-time

THE WILL TO CHANGE: MEN, MASCULINITY AND LOVE - bell hooks

Every man needs to read this book IF they want to become less diseased by patriarchy. If you want to remain broken and diseased DO NOT READ THIS BOOK

[Holymanm]

June 2020 (4)

Katalin Street (Magda Szabó, 1969) - 3/5
Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) - 3.5/5
The Vegetarian (Han Kang, 2007) - 1.5/5
No Longer Human (Osamu Dazai, 1948) - 3.5/5

[kanafani]

Here are the best books I’ve read during my hiatus:

Ghachar ghochar - Vivek Shanbhag
A bunch of lovecraft (call of Cthulhu, color of out space, at the mountains of madness...)
The warmth of other suns (Isabel Wilkerson)
Palomar (Hernandez)
The custom of the country (Edith Wharton)
Austerlitz (sebald)
Bury me standing (Isabel fonseca)
Swag (Elmore Leonard)
Severina (rodrigo Rey Rosa)
Say nothing (Keefe)
Ma Rainey’s black bottom (August Wilson)

[wba]

July 2020

Aurelia ou le Reve et la Vie “Aurelia oder Der Traum und das Leben” [translated by Hedwig Kubin] (Gerard de Nerval / 1855 / France / French / German) - 5.5/10
Donau so blau (Thomas Hodina / 2020 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10
Pankraz, der Schmoller (Gottfried Keller / 1856 / Braunschweig [Germany] / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Frau Regel Amrain und ihr Jüngster (Gottfried Keller / 1855 / Berlin / German / German) - 5/10
Moselfahrt aus Liebeskummer (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1932 / Germany / German / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
Gan “Die Wildgans” [translated by Fritz Vogelgsang] (Ogai Mori / 1911 / Japan / Japanese / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
Siegfried et le Limousin “Siegfried oder Die zwei Leben des Jacques Forestier” [translated by Otto F. Best] (Jean Giraudoux / 1922 / France / French / German) - 6/10
Maigret hesite “Maigret zögert” [translated by Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau, Astrid Roth] (Georges Simenon / 1968 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Gradiva. Ein pompejanisches Phantasiestück (Wilhelm Jensen / 1902 / Vienna [Austria-Hungary] / German / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensens „Gradiva“ (Sigmund Freud / 1907 / Vienna [Austria-Hungary] / German / German) - 6/10
Weihnachten auf der Lindwurmfeste oder Warum ich Hamoulimepp hasse (Walter Moers / 2018 / Germany / German / German) - 6.5/10
Rheinsberg. Ein Bilderbuch für Verliebte (Kurt Tucholsky / 1912 / Germany / German / German) - 6/10
Le fond de la bouteille “Am Maultierpass” [translated by Michael Mosblech] (Georges Simenon / 1949 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Le bloc “Der Block” [translated by Cornelia Wend] (Jerome Leroy / 2011 / France / French / German) - 6.5/10
Takslagsöl “Richtfest” [translated by Helen Oplatka-Steinlin] (August Strindberg / 1906 / Sweden / Swedish / German) - 7/10 ♥

[brian d]

the apple in the dark (clarice lispector) *****
soldier's pay (william faulkner) **
against professors (sextus empiricus) ****
two on a tower (thomas hardy) ***
aaron's rod (dh lawrence) ***
ada or ardor (vladimir nabokov) [reread] ***

[kanafani]

Saga ( Vaughan)
Paper Girls 1, 2, 3 (Vaughan)
Old New York (Wharton)
Maximum Bob (Leonard)
Appointment in Samarra (O'Hara)
Glengarry Glen Ross (Mamet)
The Road (McCarthy)
The Debacle (Zola)
Angels in America (Kushner)
Ethan Frome (Wharton)
Les 7 Boules de Cristal (Herge)
Les Cigares Du Pharaon (Herge)
Le Temple du soleil (Herge)
Objectif Lune (Herge)
Tintin in Tibet (Herge)

[nrh]

the honjin murders, seishi yokomizo
moonwise, greer gilman
of cats and elfin, sylvia townsend warner
the riddlemaster of hed, patricia mckillip
the island under the earth, avram davidson
the empty space: a haunting, m john harrison
annihilation, jeff vandermeer

[wba]

August 2020

Huozhe “Leben!“ [translated by Ulrich Kautz] (Hua Yu / 1992 / China / Chinese / German) - 7.5/10 ♥
Lady Windermere’s Fan. A Play About a Good Woman (Oscar Wilde / 1893 / UK / English / English) - 5.5/10
Zornfried (Jörg-Uwe Albig / 2019 / Germany / German / German) - 5.5/10
Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (Gottfried Keller / 1856 / Braunschweig [Germany] / German / German) - 7/10
Die drei gerechten Kammacher (Gottfried Keller / 1856 / Braunschweig [Germany] / German / German) - 6/10
Avatar [translated by Jörg Alisch] (Teophile Gautier / 1856 / France / French / German) - 5/10
Spiegel, das Kätzchen (Gottfried Keller / 1856 / Braunschweig [Germany] / German / German) - 6/10
Die Leute von Seldwyla (Gottfried Keller / 1856 / Braunschweig [Germany] / German / German) - 6.5/10
Die Waffenbrüder (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1911 / Germany / German / German) - 6/10
Angelucia (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1911 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Die Vogelscheuche (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1911 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Die Geige. Vier Novellen (Rudolf Georg Binding / 1911 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
La chambre bleue “Das blaue Zimmer” [translated by Hansjürgen Wille, Barbara Klau, Mirjam Madlung] (Georges Simenon / 1964 / France / French / German) - 6/10
La Jangada. Huit cents lieues sur l’Amazone “Die Jangada. 800 Meilen auf dem Amazonas” [translated by ??, Christian Döring] (Jules Verne / 1881 / France / French / German) - 7/10 ♥
V Zali (Ivan Tavčar / 1894 / Ljubljana [Austria-Hungary] / Slovene / Slovene) - 7/10 ♥
Die Schmetterlingspuppe (Wilhelm Lehmann / 1918 / Germany / German / German) - 7/10 ♥
Libussa, des Kaisers Leibroß (Carl Sternheim / 1922 / Germany / German / German) - 5.5/10

[kanafani]

From hell (Moore)
Capital in the twenty-first century (Piketty)
Blankets (Thompson)
Long day’s journey into night (O’Neil)
The enigma of Clarence Thomas (Corey)
Home (Morrison)
The reactionary mind (Corey)
Pride and prejudice (austin)
Edie: American girl (Stein)
The shape of a pocket (Berger)

[brian d]

the mayor of casterbridge (thomas hardy) [reread] ****
white man, listen! (richard wright) ****
the private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner (james hogg) ***
night without day (marie billetdoux) [reread] ****
incest (christine angot) *
bonjour tristesse (françoise sagan) ****
the four zoas (william blake) *****

[grabmymask]

as i lay dying
the autobiography of gucci mane