Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
- “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
Recent Comments
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on March 2026 Snapshots
- sheila on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- Jessie on March 2026 Snapshots
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Maddy on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- sheila on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Joseph Pedulla on Susan Hayward Sleeps Raw
- sheila on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- P Nickel on “The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
- Melissa Sutherland on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
-
Tag Archives: Robert Conquest
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” –Robert Conquest
“I think once you accept that you have the answer to everything, you can do anything to bring it about because your enemies are trying to stop you, are enemies of reason, of truth of everything – enemies of the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, nonfiction, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Great Terror, war
3 Comments
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
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Lots of re-reads because 1. I’m in turmoil. The familiar is a comfort. 2. The majority of my books have been in storage for almost a year. We all have been reunited but they’re still in boxes stacked against the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Greta Garbo, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Robert Conquest, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, stuff I've been reading
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, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, William Shakespeare, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
Everybody Breaks, Bro: Costa-Gavras’ The Confession
The fourth shot in Costa-Gavras’ excruciating film The Confession. If Robert Conquest explained the machinations behind the Soviet show trials in the 1930s in The Great Terror, and if, in Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler walked you through the the … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Arthur Koestler, Costa-Gavras, Darkness at Noon, politics, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror
Leave a comment
2017 Books Read
I got into a good rhythm with reading this year. I did a lot of re-reading, going back to books I haven’t read in 20 years or whatever. It was fun, like a reunion with an old friend. Much of … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, A.S. Byatt, Bette Davis, books read, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Edgar Allan Poe, England, France, George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Herman Melville, Hitler, Ireland, Jack London, Janet Malcolm, Jean Renoir, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, John Milton, Kim Stanley, Mark Danielewski, Mary Astor, Mary Gaitskill, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Altman, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, S.E. Hinton, Shirley Jackson, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, The Great Terror, war
4 Comments
Bookshelf Tour #9
The books of Robert Conquest: first and foremost his masterpiece, one of the most important books of the 20th century: The Great Terror: A Reassessment, but also Reflections on a Ravaged Century, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Afghanistan, Balkans, bookshelves, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, The Great Terror, war
9 Comments
R.I.P. Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest, one of the most important and influential historians of the 20th century (who started out as a poet, the guys he palled around with were Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin) has died at the age of 98. His … Continue reading
Rebecca West on Goering
I’ve got a couple of what I call “intellectual idols”, people who analyze and parse the world and its events, in a way that seems singular, important, and (in some cases) life-altering (for me). I was one way before I … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged George Orwell, Germany, Rebecca West, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Ryszard Kapuściński, war, WWII
19 Comments
“Even his walk made him different from everyone else.”
I’m reading Nureyev: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh right now, and it is superb!! I don’t know anything about ballet, and know very little about the ballet world itself – and while the bare bones of Nureyev’s story are familiar … Continue reading