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I don't recommend reading a writer back to back. I read about 12 novels by Saramago in a seven-month span, and I just can't stand him anymore. A writer I was hailing as my favourite a few months ago, he makes me sick now :( trouble is, I still got 4 more novels by him to read before I finish him...

I sometimes write notes down on the margins. Last time I did that was last year with Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain: I don't do this with every novel, but this one really deserves it. I always write notes when reading non-fiction, though; interesting facts and passages always get...

Fathers and Sons just didn't enthrall me. If this is the origin of Nihilism, then I don't see what's all the fuss about. Bazarov's philosophy doesn't seem particularly threatening, fascinating or repulsive. It's just... just. Hardly seem slike the Great Demon that Dostoevsky is always...

Finished Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works this weekend: it was brilliant, another great book by a wonderful writer who can make linguistics, evolution and neuroscience seem easy and fascinating.

Most people argue against suicide for its apparent selfishness: people aren't thinking about the others when they kill themselves. Well, I think when someone reaches the psychological stage when they wish to kill themselves, worrying about what others will think could hardly matter. Living just...

The plausibility probably comes from that fact that Roth is writing it like an autobiography. He writes his family and himself into this alternative past, where he speculates how his childhood would have been under persecution. But something tells me that young Phil Roth really did suffer...

Fiction: The Call of the Toad: Günter Grass The Aspern Papers: Henry James I Married A Communist: Philip Roth El Lugar donde Estuvo el Paraiso: Carlos Franz (no translation) Non-fiction: Descarte's Baby: Paul Bloom The Dictators: Richard Overy Civilization and Its Discontents...

Two things, abe: 1) they weren't published in Kafka's life. 2) they really are sketches, most of them anyway, left incomplete by an insecure writer who hardly ever finished anything he wrote. That's why I can't stand Kafka: most of his work is unpolished; and I think most of his work...

Venice seems to stimulate in writers tales of obsession, art, and obsession with art :D I found James’ novella similar to Thomas Mann’s Death In Venice, only this is a spiritual, introspective book, whereas The Aspern Papers reads like a thriller. I’m still unsure whether James is taking...

Right now I'm reading Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. I read he explored the nature of Evil in Mankind using Abhram and Isaac's story (Mr. Kierkegaard was very religious), which seemed fascinating. But it started disappointingly. I've only just read 27 pages, though.

I suppose initially she'd be given a clean slate. She's a democrat and was married to Bill Clinton, the last decent American President: they seem to share the same beliefs. I think if she sticks to the ideals she's always preaching about, she could change the way America is currently seen by the...

I second Lars Trier's Manderlay.

Kafka's objective rendition of the supernatural was a big influence on Gabriel García Márquez' development of 'magical realism', treating miracles, supernatural beings, strange events as everyday happenings. But whereas Márquez is sensuous and meandering (which I like), Kafka is colourless and...

There’s a great pleasure in getting to know a writer’s style. I Married A Communist marks the third Philip Roth novel I’ve read, and I’m amazed at how Roth can write a novel so consistent with his other works, with many identifiable author marks, and still weave a surprising, enthralling story...

Be sure to read Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate too ;) I'm currently reading something that's very similar to Pinker's subjects: Paul Bloom's Descarte's Baby: How Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human. Bloom has many interesting things to say about how children at very tender ages...

Ira Ringold's older brother, Murray, was my first high school English teacher, and it was through him that I hooked up with Ira. - Philip Roth, I Married A Communist.

Glad I corrected it before causing any accidents :) I wouldn't say Milton was being gutsy: he's the typical contradictory artist who supports what's at the margins of the mainstream, and yet what he supports goes against his own beliefs. In his case he was in favour of freedom of speech, but...

Actually It's my mistake :o got the dates wrong in my head: Milton actually published Paradise Lost after Oliver Cromwell's 'republic', for which Milton had written propaganda. Milton was high on the puritan and parliamentary causes, and felt disappointed with the end of the Republic in 1658 and...

Yes, he was already blind; a true 17th-century Jorge Luís Borges :D He also wrote the poem at the only time when England wasn't a monarchy and government was under the control of crazy puritans who could kill you for any reason. So it was a good move to be anti-monarchic. ;)

I'm currently reading and enjoying the hell out of The Dictators (Richard Overy) a dissection and comparison of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. Every angle of both dictatorships is touched on, from how Hitler and Stalin came to power, to the cult of personality, to the methods of...