Magnificent Octopus

No, I'm not the least bit offended by Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain . But it's so easy to mock the patients who people this n...

It seems I am capable of being the kind of person who reads more than one book at a time (not including the couple books it's taking me ...

Working my way through Simenon's romans durs , one by tragic one. Ordering them one by one, on an as-needed basis; otherwise, I fear I w...

Rock Crystal , by Adalbert Stifter , reads like a fairy tale. Once upon a time, two children set out across the mountain to visit their gran...

Non frustra vixi. Life A User's Manual (Georges Perec) is so, so much the book I wish I would write. I love how difficult it was t...

Der Zauberberg ! I'm halfway up the mountain! I give you here some of my thoughts on the remainder of chapter 5 of The Magic Mountain , ...

I was all excited about returning to the arms of Thomas Mann after having set aside The Magic Mountain back in January, and I had a wonderf...

Hans gets an x-ray! And Hans Castorp saw exactly what he should have expected to see, but which no man was ever intended to see and which he...

Oh no! Hans bought a thermometer! Pretty much just a page after where I'd last left off . Not much secret what the rest of the book will...

Ultimately, there is something odd about settling in somewhere new — about the perhaps laborious process of getting used to new surroundings...

Chapter 3 of The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann) is pretty long. Hans is greatly embarrassed and offended by the bestial behaviour of the Russ...

Another exercise in reading slowly and carefully. The Magic Mountain , by Thomas Mann. I'm not sure what led me to this book — Mann keep...