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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends
I finished reading Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends, translated and with a biographical sketch by Constance Garnett. This is just what it sounds like—a large collection of letters Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote to family and various friends. He wrote to his mother, brothers, and sister, his friend and editor (Suvorin), other writers…
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Pines by Blake Crouch
I just finished reading Pines by Blake Crouch, a novel published in 2012. It’s a fast-paced, page-turning thriller with a lot of action and suspense shrouded in strange mystery. The story is told in fast, clipped, sometimes fragmentary language. As the enigma deepens, the reader is tantalized with little hints of what is really going…
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Dreamers (Sværmere) by Knut Hamsun
I just finished reading Dreamers (Sværmere; 1904) by Knut Hamsun, translated by W. W. Worster. In this short work, Hamsun tells the story of a handful of characters living in a small fishing village. With spare description he constructs a bright, crisp world that, despite the novel’s brevity, feels somehow real. I enjoyed the prose…
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Youth by Leo Tolstoy
Book jot from January 2022: I just finished reading Youth by Leo Tolstoy (1857), translated by Judson Rosengrant. This is the third and final part of a series of autobiographical novels Tolstoy published early in his writing life. In Youth, the narrator enters university life and becomes “grown up”. As he enters this phase of…
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Andromache by Euripides
I still have a few back-logged book jots I want to post. Here is one from December 2021: I just finished reading the play Andromache by Euripides (late 5th century BC), translated by Philip Vellacott. It is one of many tales from antiquity describing the rippling effects of the Trojan War and the lives of…
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Dream Tales and Prose Poems by Ivan Turgenev
I finished reading Dream Tales and Prose Poems (1879-1882) by Ivan Turgenev (translated by Constance Garnett). It contains the following short stories: “Clara Militch,” “Phantoms,” “The Song of Triumphant Love,” and “The Dream,” as well as a collection of numerous vignettes, titled “Poems in Prose.” This was a great read! I love Turgenev’s writing and,…
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Alexander the Great by Jean Racine
I finished reading Alexander the Great, a five-act tragedy written by Jean Racine and first produced in 1655. The version I read was a translation published in 1890 by Robert Bruce Boswell. I haven’t always enjoyed translations I’ve found in the public domain, but found this one to be excellent. The action of the play…
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My Life As an Indian by J. W. Schultz
I just finished reading My Life As an Indian (1907), a memoir written by J. W. Schultz. This was a fantastic and moving read. The story begins in the late 1870s, as a teenage Schultz leaves his family home in St. Louis on a steamship, bound for present-day Montana. He befriends a trader named Berry…
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The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje
I just finished reading The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems (1970) by Michael Ondaatje. It is a combination of poetry and prose poetry; it’s often referred to as a novel in verse. Most of it is written from the fictional perspective of Billy the Kid. Some sections are written from the…
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Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
I just finished reading Stormbringer (1977) by Michael Moorcock, the sixth and concluding novel of the Elric Saga. This novel early on develops an epic tone and does not disappoint. In addition to Elric and his runesword Stormbringer, the reader is treated to some of Elric’s best companions—his fast and closest friend Moonglum, his cousin…