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- “Life was bitter and I was not. All around me was poverty and sordidness but I refused to see it that way. By turning it into jokes, I made it bearable.” — Max Shulman
- “I couldn’t keep a dog and a James Joyce and a bookshop.” — Sylvia Beach
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- “Make the most of what you have and enjoy being female; enjoy being you.” — Bunny Yeager
- “My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams.” — Liza Minnelli
- “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
- “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
- “My aim is to imply rather than to overstate. Whenever the reader participates with his own interpretation, I feel that the book is much more successful.” — Ezra Jack Keats
- “A good director must be able to inspire whoever he was coaching so that the actor would live the scene. Make-believe must become reality.” — Raoul Walsh
- February 2026 Snapshots
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- Jessie on Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 13: “Houses of the Holy”
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- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Romeo & Juliet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Romeo & Juliet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Romeo & Juliet
- Ian on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Romeo & Juliet
- dres on Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 13: “Houses of the Holy”
- JAMES DAVID BAIN on The Books: “Collected Plays of Anton Chekhov” – ‘Swan Song’ (Anton Chekhov)
- dres on Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 12: “Nightshifter”
- sheila on “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
- Scott Abraham on “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
- sheila on “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
- dres on Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 12: “Nightshifter”
- Frances on “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
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Tag Archives: Edvard Radzinsky
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Croatia, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Edvard Radzinsky, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Joseph Ellis, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Shakespeare, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
2015 Books Read
Even I am impressed with how much I read this year. Along the course of the year, occasionally I’d think to myself, “Good job, Sheila, with your Self-Imposed Reading Plan!” I’ve read a lot of new novels (not really my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alexander Hamilton, Baseball A Literary Anthology, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Edvard Radzinsky, Elvis Presley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Hannah Arendt, Hunter S. Thompson, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Jincy Willett, Joan Didion, John Banville, John Wayne, Joshua Ferris, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Margaret Atwood, Norman Rush, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Zindel, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Ron Chernow, Russia, science, Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare, Vietnam, W.H. Auden, William Styron
22 Comments
2013 Books Read
It’s been a hell of a year. Devastating as well as redemptive. I started it out in Memphis, and end it here in New Jersey. And now my new niece Pearl has arrived! It’s been both a busy year as … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Annie Proulx, Arthur Koestler, Balkans, books read, Darkness at Noon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, friends, George Eliot, H.L. Mencken, Henry James, Herman Melville, Hungary, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, Joan Didion, John Banville, Joseph Heller, Joshua Ferris, Lester Bangs, Lorrie Moore, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, Russia, Sam Cooke, Shakespeare, Stalin, Tana French, The Netherlands, The Only Game In Town, Thomas Carlyle, Victor Serge, Yugoslavia
33 Comments
Today in history: November 7, 1917
Yesterday’s post was a bit prescient, considering that today is the anniversary of one of the most seismic events of the 20th century: The Russian Revolution (or, at least, that first successful power-grab.) Look at that rogue’s gallery. I love … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
Tagged Edvard Radzinsky, George Orwell, Grey Gardens, Lenin, politics, Russia, Stalin, Trotsky, Victor Klemperer, war
9 Comments
Today In History: November 7, 1917
One of the most seismic events of the 20th century: The Russian Revolution. Look at that gathering of rogues. I love the grainy old photographs of all of them – they always look so twinkly and jolly, don’t they? It’s … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
Tagged Edvard Radzinsky, George Orwell, Lenin, Russia, Stalin, Trotsky, Victor Klemperer, war
4 Comments
“Our Friend” My Ass
I finally finished The Rasputin File. (Radzinsky wrote the Stalin book that put me into such a frenzy not so long ago) All autocrats must fall – and there’s no love lost between me and the Tsar (I’m sure he’s … Continue reading
Stalin: Taming the Intelligentsia
Note from me: I will probably continue to edit and add to this post – I dashed it off in a FEVER! I am continuing to pick at it – so if it continues to change as you look at … Continue reading
Fungus in Red Square
Member this whole story? About Lenin sprouting fungus in the middle of Red Square? The whole embalmed leader thing has always fascinated me on a very abstract level. It’s so creepy, and – so labor-intensive – like – people’s entire … Continue reading