Blogarama: The Oldest Blog Directory

or: A Double Alphabet of Writers Including Nobel Prize LaureatesRight on New Year’s Day I plunged into the book blogging year with the review of the humorous classic The Man Who Search… Read More

A Novel – Almost – Like A Fairy Tale: Helen by Maria EdgeworthAs an English-Irish woman writer Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) was among the first to earn general recognition in the… Read More

A Boy and a Red Lama on the Diamond Way: Kim by Rudyard KiplingWorldwide most reading lists for children contain at least one book written by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who was awarded the… Read More

In his time Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was one of the most famous and most successful German-language writers, but when – despairing at the political situation in his country of origin (… Read More

There will be very few who deny that the mother has a very special place in the heart of a person and that when she dies, it uses to be a particularly painful loss in most cases even if she… Read More

The Great War of 1914-18 had been raging in Europe and other parts of the world for over a year, when in December 1915 the little known French writer Romain Rolland was awarded the Nobel Pri… Read More

As I already remarked two years ago, when I wrote a biography of Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921)  (»»» read her author’s portrait here), the important Span… Read More

As I already remarked two years ago, when I wrote a biography of Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921)  (»»» read her author’s portrait here), the important Span… Read More

With thousands of refugees streaming to Europe along with (mostly illegal) immigrants and with terrorism being a futile though popular kind of “battle” preferably used by those… Read More

With thousands of refugees streaming to Europe along with (mostly illegal) immigrants and with terrorism being a futile though popular kind of “battle” preferably used by those… Read More

As I already remarked two years ago, when I wrote a biography of Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921)  (»»» read her author’s portrait here), the important Span… Read More

Nobody will deny that Anna Harriette Leonowens (1831-1915) was an impressive woman who led an extraordinary life for a woman in the Victorian Age. Nonetheless, nobody would still remember he… Read More

Multi-talented and restless as he was, August Strindberg (1849-1912) never limited himself to only one trade. In his life he was active as painter, photographer, natural scientist, and sinol… Read More

The Variety of Standards of Human Behaviour: Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict Confronted with other cultures or just life-styles we all tend to be rather judgemental classifying the one… Read More

The Decomposition of a Musical Brain: Ravel. A Novel by Jean EchenozThere are melodies so unique that it’s enough to hear their first notes to know what is coming. Without doubt the Bo… Read More

When a Woman Loves a Man: The Jib Door by Marlen Haushofer It’s a well-known truth that love has the potential to make blind for anything unpleasant involved and at all times writ… Read More

A History of the Book Trade: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee However much we love reading, we seldom think about the book trade in general or about bookshops in particular… Read More

1 January – 31 December 2016 This year was the second time that I participated in a reading challenge hosted by Valentina from the bilingual book blog peek-a-booK!. More precisely it… Read More

To read the first work of a much adored writer can be either a revelation or more likely a deception, sometimes even a big one because not many succeed in producing outstanding literature al… Read More

click on the image to go to the challenge on Books and Chocolate My Dozen of Classics- completed and forthcoming reviews -(subject to change)19th-century classic: Jens Peter Jacobsen: M… Read More

Click on the image to go to thechallenge on Whatever I Think OfMy Long Longlist of Epistolary FictionAs I found out a year ago, February is the Month of Letters and I gladly seize the opport… Read More

Saint Augustine and His Abandoned Concubine: Vita Brevis by Jostein Gaarder During much of European history men shaped the world of things and thought as they believed right and passed over… Read More

An Author’s Fictionalised Experiences: The Novels of Ōe Kenzaburō by Yasuko ClaremontAll his life Gustave Flaubert claimed that only the story counted and that its author sho… Read More

A Widower’s Grief: Bruges-la-morte by Georges RodenbachWomen or men who need to come to terms with the loss of a loved one are popular figures in literature. Since readers like happy e… Read More

The Unpopular Genius: Gustav Mahler by Alma Mahler-WerfelAs beautiful, highly educated and endowed for the arts as Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964) was, she could have achieved a lot in the wo… Read More

A Child’s View of Africa in the 1960s: The Famished Road by Ben Okri It was in autumn 2016 when one of those e-mails offering the free copy of a book for review that I regularly r… Read More

A Suffocating Village: Death in Spring by Mercè RodoredaLess than a year ago I reviewed a novel by Catalan author Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983) who is much celebrated in her count… Read More

Health and Social Gradient:Status Syndrome by Michael MarmotIt’s a generally known fact that poverty makes sick, but in our modern Western world people usually don’t fight for me… Read More

A Young Woman’s Flight: The Adventure of the Black Lady by Aphra BehnThe English prose novel as we know it today is an amazingly recent invention. Its rise began only in the seventeent… Read More

click on the image to go to the    challenge on Books and Chocolate    Like every year half of the books that I read and reviewed here on Edith’s Miscellany we… Read More

 click on the image to go to the     challenge on peek-a-booK!In 2017 I participated once more in the bilingual Women Challenge #5 that Valentina hosted again on peek-a-b… Read More

Another blogging year has begun here on Edith’s Miscellany – the seventh already! – and it’s time to make some literary resolutions. It’s true that I haven&rs… Read More

Happy New Year! So here we are again at the beginning of a year, even of a new decade this time. Let’s hope that it will have many literary treats – contemporary and classical &n… Read More