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Tag Archives: Stalin
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
It’s been a while. Been a very busy summer. Family vacation as we do every year. Reunions with family after the lockdown. Tears when hugging aunts and uncles. New job, new digs, lots of change. Lots of writing too! Less … Continue reading
Posted in Books, writers
Tagged Biography, Cary Grant, Czeslaw Milosz, Eve Babitz, fiction, Ireland, Memoirs, Poland, politics, Stalin, stuff I've been reading, war
2 Comments
May 2021 Viewing Diary
The Waterman (2021; d. David Oyelowo) I really loved this. Reviewed for Ebert. Des (2020; d. Lewis Arnold) Here’s what I jotted down on Instagram: David Tennant is eerily good in DES. He never does anything wrong, never makes an … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged action movies, animation, Charles Grodin, children's movies, comedy, crime movies, David Fincher, documentary, drama, England, Georgia, Meryl Streep, Miriam Hopkins, Pre-Code, short films, Sofia Coppola, Spain, Stalin, women directors
21 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
My lifestyle has changed. It now involves shuffling children around to dentist appointments and Little League games, joining the solidarity of the parents in the bleechers. I live in a small working-class town by the beach. I’m busy with writing … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Eve Babitz, Germany, Memoirs, nonfiction, Russia, Stalin, Stefan Zweig, stuff I've been reading, Thomas Mann, Yugoslavia
6 Comments
Review: State Funeral (2021) Stalin kicks the bucket. Nation-wide “mourning” ensues. A review I was born to write.
If you’ve been hanging around on my blog for a while, then you know how much I’ve written about Stalin. He used to have a whole “Category” back in the day, before I switched it to a “tag”. Yeah, because … Continue reading
Dear Comrades! is extremely my kind of thing
Written and directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, Dear Comrades! is about the 1962 Novocherkassk massacre, as seen and experienced through the eyes of a woman who is still a true believer in the Soviet Union’s goals/socialist Utopia/etc. A “Soviet woman” through … Continue reading
2020 Books Read
What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, ballet, Ballets Russes, Belfast, Biography, books read, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, dance, Dubravka Ugrešić, Elinor Lipman, Elizabeth Bishop, Eminem, essays, Ezra Pound, fiction, H.D., Hannah Arendt, Hitler, Ireland, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Marcel Proust, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shirley Jackson, Stalin, true crime, Ukraine, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
38 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny Glenn is a friend of mine and I’ve been looking forward to reading his book on the making-of Goodfellas. Glenn is an amazing writer (he blogs at Some Came Running: he … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies
Tagged Belfast, fiction, Ireland, Martin Scorsese, Memoirs, nonfiction, Russia, Stalin, stuff I've been reading, true crime, war, WWII
15 Comments
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
2018 Books Read
2018 Books Read 1. Tamburlaine, Part 1, by Christopher Marlowe I finished 2017 with Paradise Lost, in the mood to continue with rigorous challenging poetry. I decided to read the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe (re-read in most cases). The … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged Animal Farm, Annie Proulx, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Clifford Odets, Edgar Allan Poe, England, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Finnegans Wake, friends, George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian McEwan, Ireland, Italy, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Pauline Kael, poetry, Poland, politics, Robert Kaplan, Romania, Ron Chernow, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Truman Capote, Victor Serge, Waiting for Lefty
7 Comments
2018 Movies: An Embarrassment of Riches
My non-definitive Top 10 is here. Many of the films in the list below had spots on the Top 10 until I had to bump them off. But here are the films that were alternates for my Top 10, movies … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Argentina, Coen brothers, documentary, Italy, Josephine Decker, Lady Gaga, Natalie Portman, South Korea, Spike Lee, Stalin, women directors
4 Comments