Winter is Coming - Gary Kasparov

A critical examination of Russia post break up.  Kasparov looks briefly at the chaos of the Yeltsin period and then goes on to examine the rise of Putin and the full realization of the current pirate capitalism system - important moments, underlying causes, etc.  He also looks at how Putin and the pirate system work to involve elites and leaders in other states, especially European, which undermines both the current more democratic systems in Germany and France, etc. and also undermines any criticism of the pirate capitalism system that Putin has set in place.  A good bit of time is also spent examining the weak, even ingratiating response of the U.S., and especially the E.U., to the rise and extension of Putin's system of control.

Kasparov's goal is to raise the alarm about the growth and gradual advancement of this type of system - a system where ruling oligarchs take all and where the people of the country have no value, count for nothing.  A system of pure material gain for the few.

This is a particularly chilling book when you consider current repressive trends in the U.S. and also the recent election cycle which elected an admirer of Putin.

An excellent look at what is sometimes referred to as an "alternate economic system of development".

Selected Stories - William Trevor

Very well crafted stories but all a bit sad, a bit depressing.  He recreates the feel of the small lives, the repressed lives of the marginalized, the poor and the forgotten.  Particularly poignant are the stories about the last surviving members of the Protestant communities in the Republic of Ireland as they slowly fade away and die.  A particular kind of Anglo-Irish desperation.  Reminiscent of the lives of some relatives from the Eastern Townships.

The Black Donnellys - Nate Hendley

A short account of this legendary story.  Fairly straight-forward.  Canada's little bit of the Wild West.  A family of bullies who behave as if they are above the law get their particularly ugly and brutal comeupance at the hands of an equally brutal angry townsmen who had had enough.

A shocking level of brutality over the years from the Donnellys.  Strange they thought somehow they would forever get away with it.

The Rings of Saturn - W. G. Sebald

I have finally found an image to explain Sebald's fiction.  He is a flâneur but a flâneur in the worlds of culture and history.  A melancholy flâneur, with a penchant for savouring lost time.

This book is ostensibly an account of a walking holiday around a small section of the East Coast of England, south of Norwich.  Through his wanderings he connects with former inhabitants and recounts their lives, their artistic accomplishments and the usually sad state of their former homes and mansions.  He explores the rise and fall of towns as fishing dies out, as farming fades, recounting both their heydays and their decline.   Fallen aristocratic families eking out an existence in the dilapidated remains of once glorious homes; the story of Joseph Conrad, who once worked on ships in the area; Swinburne; other smaller artists, collectors, authors who live in the area.

He is like a traveller, and his books a record of the meeting of his mind with the ghosts of the past.

Le Flâneur des deux rives - Guillaume Apollinaire

Jai trouvé ce livre disponible sur internet.  Une collection d'essais d'avant la guerre qui raconte quelques coins, quelques rues, quelques locales du Paris de cette époque.  Apollinaire peint une image du Paris des banlieues artistiques avant que cette reconstruction commencée par Hausmann n'y ait arrivée pour tout refaire.  C'est une image bien différente des façades restreintes et uniformes de nos jours; plus humble, plus humaine, plus désordonnée, mais avec charme.  Impossible à voir cela maintenant.
Apollinaire aussi évoque toute une vie, tout un monde artiste et poète de l'époque - il cite des noms de poètes de nos jours oubliés, mais qui à cette période étaient connus, même bien connus, et qui faisaient partie de tout un cercle de poètes et artistes qui travaillaient et partageaient la vie et les idées.  Cela m'a donné une nouvelle impression de ce monde du début de siècle.  On imagine toujours cette époque avec les géants comme Picasso et Apollinaire qui trônent sur tous les autres artistes, mais en vérité, à l'époque ils étaient des gens parmi d'autres; ils travaillaient comme les autres à poursuivre leurs idées et leurs inspirations.  C'est nous, bien après, qui en avons fait des figures démesurées, des géants des arts.  Un peu au hasard peut-être.  Qui sait?

Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930 - Joachim Schlor

A real sociological study of how night changed in the city with the introduction first of gas lighting, and then of electric lighting.  While the text is a little too detailed and dense for my level of interest, there are still some interesting ideas.  He also quotes and refers to many important cultural and literary figures of the time as part of his research.

Until the mid-1800s cities pretty much shut down once it was dark.  Many had laws about being inside at home from dark until dawn.  This was largely as a measure of social control in a time when forces of order would have trouble watching the goings-on in the street.  With the initial introduction of gas lighting, and later with electric lighting, the streets became much busier at night.  Walking the lit up main streets became a destination and an amusement in itself.  Prostitution and petty crime also flourished in this early stage of city street lighting - while the main streets were lit, the smaller streets remained very dark, easy places for hiding and disappearing.  Near the end of the century, nightlife began to move off the street again and into lit-up interiors - cafes, clubs, restaurants, brothels, bals dansants, theatres, etc.  This was the preferred outcome for the forces of order, as interior spaces are much easier to control and supervise than the street, interestingly.

Many of the chapters in the book deal with the competing claims of freedom, excitement and the need for security, morality and social order.  I was less interested in these chapters.  The second-last chapter, Nightwalking, was the most interesting for me.  It traces the unusual affinity of some walking the city at night.  He discusses the concept of flâneur, and mentions Apollinaire.  Flâner as a meeting of open-minded observation with erudition - nice description.  Schlor also notes how many sources discuss how the growing presence of very bright light combined with the retreat to interior space again, destroyed the art of the flâneur, as the streets became both emptier and less mysterious, less suggestive.  He also notes the general consensus that by 1920 in both Berlin and London, the riotousness, the unpredictability and the frisson of night life was gone, replaced by commercialized, stereotyped entertainments of the night.  Captialism at work...

There is an excellent bibliography at the book for exploring some of this further

The West End Horror - Nicholas Meyer

Another Sherlock Holmes mystery by Meyer.  He does a good copy of Doyle's style and structure.  I also enjoy how he brings in other famous people from the time - in this one it is George Bernard Shaw.

The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Marra

A beautifully interwoven set of stories depicting life in the far reaches of Siberia and Chechnya in late Soviet times and early Putin days.  Marra manages to evoke the apocalyptic landscapes of a northern mining town and post-war Grozny, as well as the pastoral landscape of the Chechen mountains.  He also creates a seemingly credible set of characters:  homo sovieticus, corrupt officials,  drug dealers, kleptocrats, gratuitously sadistic soldiers and criminal gangs, victims.  The wandering story of two brothers.  An exploration of the small details of what went wrong in post-Soviet Russia. Quite an amazing book.

I am left wondering how he developed this imaginary landscape that he writes in.  There is no indication that he studied this field other than the books he credits in his acknowledgements.  I am wondering how he developed such a feel for the gritty details of these lives.

Find more.

Edvard Munch Archetypes - Paloma Alarco

While I still really love much of the work of Munch and enjoyed looking at the reproductions, I found the essays rather pedantic.  I suppose it is more of a scholarly look at his work.  And I do see how they pull the archetypes idea out of his body of work.

I have a couple of problems with this though.
First, his archetypal images of women border on stereotypical - mother whore, innocence temptress,  youth crone.  True, these are enduring images of women dating back to Shakespeare, commedia dell'arte, etc - which could be said about the other archetypes he explores around men and people in general.
I guess the thing I find disturbing is the absolute seriousness with which he portrays these classic tropes - there is no wit, no humour.  These stereotypes date back to commedia dell'arte, some even to ancient Greek theatre, and there, in those times, there was a lot of irreverence and humour injected into the interplay of these archetypical characters.  I find them disturbing, even a bit scary, when presented with such seriousness.

Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past - Chuck Klosterman

Great title for a book, but as sometimes happens, doesn't quite live up to the potential.  The main focus of the book is what I would consider pop culture - rock music, football, TV - and an attempt to analyze what might be lasting or of quality in these forms.  Unfortunately I am not really interested in these questions.

We live in a period of unprecedented issue and problems that threaten to destroy societies and life on earth.  This train of thought would have been much more interesting if applied to some of the current big issues we face, and how our attempts to find solutions are limited by our ability to think differently, to break out of past models and understandings.

Les cahiers japonais - Igort

Un autre B.D. par Igort.  Il raconte son obsession avec le Japon et le B.D. japonais, et comment il a fini par travailler dans l'industire Manga (Il est l'auteur d'une célèbre série manga).  Cela lui donne aussi l'excuse d'explorer différents aspects de l'art japonais.  Il y a aussi quelques reflections sur la culture japonaise.  Bien dessiné mais son livre sur la Russie et L'Ukraine est toujours le meilleur.

Resistance - Barry Lopez

A collection of short stories.  Each story is about a person living outside the dominant consumer exploitative culture of North America.  There are some nice passages of description of nature, of of appreciation for simple, ancient crafts.  The best story is the one set in the south-west U.S. as I think this is the landscape and culture he has spent the most time thinking about.

A little bit contrived sounding at times, perhaps pretentious or recherché, but still worth reading.

A Gift from the Heart: Folk tales from Bulgaria - Rodost Pridham

Straight, old-fashioned collection.  Some good ones.

In their tradition, the trickster character is the lazy villager.  The fools are the prosperous townspeople.

Vertigo - W.G Sebald

Another odd book by Sebald.  Four sections - hard to pin down what each is really about.  Atmospherics, poetics, evocation of memories.  Most of the book seems to follow the narrator's travels from one city to another while working on some kind of project related to specific Italian Renaissance paintings.
A very interiorized narration.  Almost to the point where the exterior world disappears from the story...

5 is the perfect number - Igort

Graphic novel.  Set in Naples.  A mafia story.  Reminds me of the film noir detective stories from France I used to read so many years ago.
Not as interesting as his collection about Russia and the Ukraine.

The Ukranian and Russian Notebooks - Igort

- subtitled Love and Death under Soviet Rule

A collection of mostly short comics based on things he has seen and people he has talked with when travelling in both Russia and the Ukraine.   Some devastating stories about the Holmodor in the Ukraine during the 30s and well as some vignettes highlighting the poverty and desperation in current Ukraine.  The Russian section focuses on a variety of moments in recent Russian history - Chechnya and the Chechen war, the brutality and corruption of the Russian armed forces, the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the deportations of kulaks during Stalin's time.  I think it works very well precisely because of the shortness of each aperçu.
The Chechen/Politkovskaya section in particular, gives you a sense of the difference in social and political culture in Russia.  It is portrayed as a system of relations based entirely on power and the ability to oppress, to use that power on those weaker.  And it runs right from the top down to the bottom, where you find the Chechens and other immigrants from former Soviet Central Asian countries.  A form of racism that mirrors the structure in the the U.S. with blacks.  Perhaps not so pervasive socially but certainly with the endless police shootings, a mirror image in some ways of the modus operandi of the Russian Special Forces.  I was thinking Igort should do a similar travel book of a trip around Black U.SA. and portray some of the stories he could gather there...

The Box Social and Other Stories - James Reaney

Unusual collection of stories when compared to both his plays and his poetry - equally infused with the tropes of genres of classic English literature.  Surprisingly, though, many of the stories are quite strongly within the gothic tradition of late 19thc early 20th c short stories.

I still quite like his marrying of classic literary references (tragic king, evil witch, etc.) to the rural southern Ontario world of his childhood.  Reminds me a bit of David Adams Richards, though in a much sleeker style.  It is the same charm that affects his plays like Kildeer - nostalgia for a lost world of innocence (which is a major literary trope in itself.)

On the Natural History of Destruction - W. G. Sebald

Great title, but a bit misleading.  The book is actually a look at the failure of post-war German literature to come to terms with the massive physical, social and cultural destruction that Germany experienced during WW 2.  Each essay looks at a particular aspect of this failure to grasp and reflect upon these experiences, preferring to make as if to walk a way and pick up a new beginning, preferring to leave them forgotten or at least ignored.

The first essay outlines the immense physical destruction of many German cities, and the innumerable deaths during the bombing raids.  He then discusses how there is very little in German post-war literature that actually reflects this physical destruction just in terms of accurate description.

The second essay discusses an author who was at one time popular, and the false or doubtful assertions about his place in the Nazi debacle that are found in his work.  The attempt to shift blame and responsibility, the  rewriting of personal history to hide things from the past or cover them over.

The third essay looks at an author, Jean Amery, who survived torture at the hands of the S.S and also Auschwitz, and who is unable or unwilling to forgive, to forget, to pardon, to move beyond resentment against history, against Germany, against the Reich.  Sebald looks at the tenability, the justifiability of this stance in spite of the general publics preference for acceptance and moving on.

The fourth essay looks at the war experience as reflected in the work of a painter, Peter Weiss.

Interesting thought and reflections and certainly within the big concerns of Sebald with remembering and the inevitable loss of memory, of the past.

To find:

Peter Weiss works

Jean Amery books

Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon

A novel by the author of The Question of Bruno - a Bosnian from Sarajevo.
This is a novel-length exploration of some of the themes from his short stories - in particular, the life of an involuntary immigrant to the U.S. during the war in Bosnia.  There are some wonderful American characters and moments as seen from the eyes of a newly arrived immigrant from a very different culture, and as an involuntary immigrant, who does not worship American culture.  He ends up with a bizarre and colourful (though not in a particularly positive way) set of social misfits in Chicago doing canvassing for Greenpeace...  Equally bizarre is the account of his visit to the Ukraine through a cultural group whose goal is to learn more about their Ukrainian background - the visit happens to fall just during the time of the coup against Gorbachev.

Worth the read - insightful and humourous at times.

The Seven-Percent Solution - Nicholas Meyer

Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud.  Holmes has developed a cocaine addiction and is tricked into visiting Vienna to get treatment.  While there, he and Freud work to solve a mystery around a catatonic woman and the ruling elite in the Hapsburg Empire.

An entertaining read, woven into the fabric of the times.

The Question of Bruno - Aleksandar Hemon

An author, born and raised in Sarajevo, now living in the U.S. and writing in English.

A collection of short stories with a wide variety of styles and tones - neurotic, absurd, pedantic, ironic, sarcastic.  Looks at different issues - life in Sarajevo under siege, watching the siege from outside Bosnia while knowing your family is still there, living under totalitarian regimes, a dark humour around americans and american life from an immigrants perspective, living on the margin as an immigrant in the U.S.

He writes well.  Worth finding more.

The Return of History - Jennifer Welsh

This book and author is causing a stir right now, which seems a bit strange to me.  Her arguments only make sense if you were naive enough to buy into Fukuyama's idea of the triumph of liberal capitalism and the western social model after the fall of the Communist bloc.
Welsh's book basically points out that things haven't worked out this way - the barbaric wars, pirate capitalism, and social equality that were always there under the liberal capitalist propaganda / daydream / theoretical ramblings are all still there.  Perhaps the western liberal capitalist worldview was more fantasy than realized - in much of the world with oppressive dictators, grinding poverty, stolen economic resources and slave-like exploitative work conditions (usually supported by some agglomeration of Western powers), the capitalist dream looked pretty much like what Welsh describes for the whole time period.  There is no question of return; it is pretty much a continuation.  The only place these type of conflict points might seem like a return is in western societies themselves, which were relatively protected to maintain public support for the ruling elites.  Now that we have globalization, a happy home public is not really necessary anymore, so things may return to being a little harsher at home...

The one thing that annoyed me is, in her discussion of Putin's new "model of government", she is not blunt enough or harsh enough.  She seems to argue that it is simply a different model of economic and political rules, expectations, pathways.  This is too kind, and I think, a bit naive.  Putin's model is a pirate capitalism model.  His concept of managing the public is to enforce rule of law so he and his cronies can go on pocketing everything they can without being disturbed by the courts, demonstrations, alternate political parties and various other social "disorders".

Perhaps and eyeopener for some, but only those lost in a liberal capitalist dream...

The Wolf of Sarajevo - Matthew Palmer

A political thriller set in modern day Bosnia.  Typical American style - some violence (no sex though), fast paced.
Worth reading for the insight into current conditions in the Balkans.  Palmer also jumps around in history in small sections to give a palpable sense of some the historical grievances that are used by political figures to stir up nationalist sentiment, both as far back as Ottoman rule and up to events in the Sarajevo siege.

Austerlitz - W. G. Sebald

A strange novel, otherworldly somehow.  It reminds me a bit of Sostiene Pereira in that it an account the story of the main character as recounted by someone to whom the story was told.
It also has an otherworldly mistiness or vagueness in that the instalments of the story are told in a variety of settings and countries around Europe through planned or chance encounters between the narrator and the main character, Austerlitz.  The setting are described in minute detail, from train stations to seedy cafes.
At the core is the story of the young Jewish children who were sent by their parents to England from Germany in 1938 or 1939 to save them from the coming disaster.  Obviously, many of these children were never able to be reunited with their families.  Some, like Austerlitz, retained only the vaguest of memories of their origins and grew up not even knowing they were Jewish.
The story is Austerlitz's slow  descent into a form of nervous collapse essentially due to a rootlessness and emotional disengagement, and then the slow discovery of something of his origins, his family's past and the source of some of the strange images and pictures he carried in his mind from his early childhood.
There is also the idea of moving through a world where so much of your own history and culture have been erased.  (Funnily enough, Palestinians could say the same about their own homeland with the deliberate Israeli policy of destroying all remains of villages.  Also Armenians as Turkey has pursued the same policy.  And the Balkans where each group tries to write the other out of its territorial history.  It is a form of public psychological disturbance or madness.)
A bit hard to get into at first as it is slow, but worth it.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

Wide variety of styles.  Wide variety of worlds.  Some good ones, some not.

Notable:

Dismemberment - Wendell Berry

Train to Harbin - Asako Serizawa (Harbin was a Japanese camp for medical experimentation on
                                                         Chinese prisoners)

Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog - Boris Akunin

A new detective character from Akunin - an orthodox nun.  Set in the same time period as his other series, 19th century Russia, but this time in the high society of the remote countryside.  Reminds me of Agatha Christie.  Good evocation of the milieu.

The Killdeer and Other Plays - James Reaney

Literature from another time set another time and place, now disappeared:  a bit gothic, a bit surrealist at times; reminds me of that play, "Our Town".  The two shorter pieces are very experimental.
I like how he reaches into the rural Canadian experience for some of his symbols, such as the killdeer.  And sets the plays in small-town Ontario with all its potential stereotypes, almost Pulcinello like.  Both classical and very local.

Outrage - Arnaldur Indridason

Second novel I have read by this Icelandic author.  Probably the last one.  His books lack psychological depth, and rely too much on the gruesome nature of the crime being investigated.  Characters are a bit thin, boring for my taste.

The Other Side of Silence - Phillip Kerr

Another "noir" novel in the Bernie Gunther series.  Enjoyable enough read but lacking in some kind of depth.  In the family of the 'Polar noir" of Latimer and Chandler but thinner somehow.  Well-researched though, and I always learn something new about Berlin and the Nazi era.

Worth reading once in a while.

Cross Channel - Julian Barnes

A collection of short stories, mostly taking place in France.  A wide spectrum of characters and times, both contemporary and historical.  Favourite story:  Gnossienne, about an author attending a literary conference of sorts in a small French town.  It is in fact a non-conference, an event organized by an anarchistic arts collective in the vein of Alfred Jarry.

Nat Tate: An America Artist 1928-1960 - William Boyd

Boyd's "factual" account of an invented artist's biography, complete with a reproduction of his one surviving work, as well as photos of the artist and others of the time and milieu.  An amusing creative endeavour, especially in the integration of real characters, diary notes, etc.  Not the most stunning read, but amusing in its intent and execution.

The Best of Writers and Company - Eleanor Wachtel

A selection of transcribed interviews from the CBC show.  A great source for new authors!

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl - Yiyun Li

A Chinese writer born in mainland China, now living in the States and writing in English.

This is a collection of delicate, sensitive short stories all set in China.  The kind of stories where something happens, but beneath the surface and hard to state precisely - ambiguity.  Stories of the complexity of relationships - love, marriage, friendship.  These are not happy stories, but stories of surviving, of getting by, the undercurrents beneath the surface of relationships.  The Chinese cultural setting makes them interesting.

Found through Eleanor Wachtel's recent book of transcribed interviews with authors.  Li has apparently had a lot of recognition in the States.

Special Assignments - Boris Akunin

A Georgian mystery/detective writer who writes in Russian.  A whole series of books with Erast Fandorin as the brilliant detective.  The two stories I read were set in 19th century Russia, Moscow in particular.  Very much a Russian Sherlock Holmes - same intelligence, same brilliant sketching of the characters, same twisted plots.
A very good read.

Dead Souls - Ian Rankin

As usual, an excellent gripping read.  The focus in this book is sexual abuse of minors in the upper levels of society and how the rich and powerful coverup for themselves and each other.
There is another book with Rebus that has the same focus - can't remember the title.

Stork Mountain - Miroslav Penkov

Bulgarian writer now living in the U.S.

A lovely novel exploring Bulgarian 20th c. history, the confused and complex ethnic and religious relations, as well as some of the old folk traditions that are on the edge of final disappearance. With a sprinkling of the corruption of Communist and current pirate capitalism.  All tied together around two love stories and storks.

A book with a lot of echoes - curiously, Penkov was mentored by Michael Ondaajte while writing this book...

Also wrote "East of the West".

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

A classic about WW 1.  The best book I have read as far as concerns the actual experience of trench warfare, from visual description of the banal horrors to be seen around you, to the psychological effect on the soldier's thoughts and reactions.
None of the the heroic histrionics nor the joys of camaraderie myths.
An introduction to the realities of any war...

Remarque went on to write some other successful books which are no longer remembered much.  Must track some down.

Midnight at the Pera Palace - Charles King

Subtitled "The Birth of Modern Istanbul"

Clever use of the Pera Palace as a focus to look at the emergence of modern Turkey and explore some of the rich 20th c history of Istanbul.
He looks at the Young Turk and Ataturk periods as well as the occupation at the end of WW I.  There is also quite a bit about the post-Revolution Russian community and what became of it.  There is a whole chapter on Trotsky's time on Büyükada.  You also get a glimpse of the intrigues during WW 2 when Turkey was neutral and every side had spies and agents operating in the city.  There is a chapter on the discoveries that led to the Haghia Sophia becoming a museum.  There are also several chapters on the role that Istanbul played as a transit point for Jews escaping Europe en route to Palestine during the later half of WW II.

One thing I found interesting is some of the detail on how Ataturk and the Republic used taxation and government seizure to push Jews and other ethnic groups out of their businesses (and by extension out of the city) and then sold their property and goods to the up-and-coming Turkish middle-class/party hacks.  In one instance a war tax of 150 to 200% of total value was placed on Jewish, Greek and Armenian businesses.  So after the Young Turks were chases from power, ethnic cleansing continued, just in a neater, tidier form...

Silence of the Grave - Arnaldur Indridason

An Icelandic murder mystery writer.
Well-written.  Not a lot of action, but well-parcelled out with jumps in time and from character to character.  Explores the psychology of domestic violence especially from the victim's side.

Find more

Iran in World History - Richard Foltz

A well-written overview of the basic events and movements in the history of Iran.  Just enough detail.  Excellent for general interest.  From 3500 BC to the present.
It also provides some insight into the long-lasting underlying forces in Iranian politics and history - the rise of clerical power, the link between the landowner class and the clerical establishment, and their resistance to political and social change.

There is also an interesting mention of Mithraism and its influence on Jews living within the Sassanian empire leading to some central concepts in the emergence of Christianity.


To find:

Hushang Golshiri - modern novelist

The Free World - David Bezmozgis

A novel about a Latvian Jewish families life as emigrants in Italy as they wait for their permanent emigration papers.  Very well-written.  Characters are well-outlined.

Several threads:

- the feeling of uprootedness that comes with emigration, especially when chased out

- the main character's attempt to break away from the suffocating atmosphere of the family

- the grand-father's cultural conflict as a former believer and apparatchik from the Latvian communist party, now an emigrant to the evil capitalist West

- intergenerational differences in values around money, role of women, etc.

Not an overtly idea-oriented book.  Very human.

Rites of Spring - Modris Eksteins

An interesting exploration of the early part of the 20th century from two perspectives - the avant-garde art movements in Paris and Berlin, and also the rhetoric and unfolding of WW1 (with an additional look at the rhetoric of Nazism in the 30s).

While providing details about ideas, perspectives and goals of major art figures as well as political and military figures, Modris is mainly teasing out an idea that both the avant-garde movements and german militarism (and later Nazism) share certain central ideas or goals - the search for authentic experience, the need to break down old social and artistic barriers and structures,  the need to build some kind of new man, new order, new aesthetic while at the same time not having a clear idea of what is to follow.  The main impetus is the idea of breaking free and an extreme individualism.

Kind of interesting to think about these origins of what is the dominant western individualistic ethos of our time...

Another point that struck me was the importance of Berlin as an avant-garde centre in that time period.  Paris seems to have dominated the plastic arts, but Berlin is the source of much of the modern in the living arts - architecture, technological design, furniture, etc.   Kind of knew this but not as clearly.

You could say that militarism and Nazism led to a kind of void - modern plastic arts seem to have suffered the same fate.  You cannot live in perpetual rebellion.  The 20th C as the age of adolescence....

Wages of Rebellion - Chris Hedges

Subtitled "The Moral Imperative of Revolt".

Essentially a look at the current political and social situation in the United States and how it resembles other historical situations where revolt or revolutions took place.  Symptoms - growing use of force against any different opinions or points of view; ruling elites growing inability to listen or hear the public at large; restriction of freedom of speech and even thought to a point; fracturing of society and retreat into various mythic historical dreams of past greatness;  xenophobia; minority phobia.

Hedges examines these things through looking at the lives of people who have paid a price for trying to make a difference:  Occupy leaders, Abu Jamal, Julian Assange, people who have spoken out on certain causes and found themselves in jail.

When you read these life stories, you realize how far from its idealized press image the current U.S. situation is. The situation is more and more similar to other repressive regimes - Putin, Nazis, Fascist Italy, Erdogan's Turkey, Sisi's Egypt, Isreal's Palestine.
It would seem many Americans have more or less lost touch with the reality of their country and have become lost in bizarre mythical dreams and stories of their world.

Another idea he brings up through an interview with Abu Jamal is how the prison system actually manages to monetize and extract value from the lives of poor, unemployed people through the system of privatized prisons and per prisoner funding from the government.  A form of modern slavery.  Convenient, especially now that you can end up in jail simply for disagreeing and acting on it in non-violent ways, as it also serves to remove and control potential leaders of critical movements.

The Young Turk's Crime Against Humanity - Taner Akçam

An academic book by a turkish historian working out of big american university.  This book offers a meticulous examination of several questions around the Armenian genocide and tries to answer the questions through examination of historical documents, archive records, witness accounts both from inside and outside the government, trial records, etc.  The evidence seems to be overwhelmingly in support of a deliberate and centrally organized attempt to eliminate the Armenian population of Turkey.  It also explores some of the reasons behind this plan besides the usual "internal enemies of the state" argument, for which it seems there is little evidence, and in fact several statements from local governors stating the opposite.  One important causal element was the need to find a place for hundreds of thousands of repatriated turkish speakers from countries in the Balkans and Greece.

A definitive read.

Cry Wolf - Michael Gregorio

A crime novel set in Umbria, specifically Spoleto and Parco dei Sibillini.  Well-written. Fast-paced.  Surprise ending.

The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario - Peter S. Schmalz

An older book, but a very thorough look at the history of the Ojibwa in Ontario - how they came to settle and move into the former Huron lands, their dominant position vis a vis the Iroquois in Ontario and the north east in general, their role in various conflicts (1812, WWI, WWII).  He also looks at how the government, settlers and Indian Department failed to honour agreements, maintain reserve lands, administer band land and finances to the tribe' advantage.  It is obvious, when you read of Ojibwa being moved off farms they had cleared and settled, that the talk of integrating natives into the white man's world was meaningless.  There are also many examples of Indian Affairs refusing to invest the bands' own money in projects that would have helped economic development, especially when there was the possibility of competing with white businesses.  The primary attitude and motivation all along on the part of whites has been greed - greed for the native's land, and for any money or economic benefits coming from that land.
The book follows the history up to the 90's and traces the gradual development after WWII of Native activism and a stronger voice in insisting on treaty rights and self-determination.
This chronicle of the willful robbery of their property and wealth guaranteed by treaty rights over the many decades highlights why Natives need a new deal, as well as vast amounts of cash recompense.

Sweet Carress - William Boyd

Another good read by this great author.  Several interesting elements in the story.  Told from a woman's point of view with a life that passes through periods of history when very few women had independence and significant public roles.  Boyd returns to one of his main themes or situations that he explores again and again from different points of view - conflict, war.  Both the 1st, 2nd and Vietnam wars are in this book.
He also returns to the Berlin of the 30s.  Not sure what he is after there, but this is a time period that seems to draw a lot of (English?) writers.  I am curious about what it is that draws them in - a society at once sophisticated and polished yet rubbing elbows intimately with overt sex and violence?  Have to see what else I can find on this question.
This book is also illustrated with random photos that Boyd has collected over many years.  I wonder in which parts the story came first, and in which parts the photo came first?
In this book, Boyd is also exploring what aging means, how we deal with aging and the changes in our lives and selves as we age.  As well as the memories.
The opening quote is:
 "Quelle que soit la durée de votre séjour sur cette petite planète, et quoi qu'il vous advienne, le plus important c'est que vous puissiez - de temps en temps - sentir la caresse exquise de la vie."  
                     Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, Avis de passage (1957) - an author who is a character in the                                                                                                                  book

Looking at some interviews with him, it seems he has become more and more obsessed with creating fiction that could be real.  I must find his biography and oeuvre of the imaginary painter Nat Tate.

Waiting for Sunrise - William Boyd

Another new genre and new setting for this versatile writer.  Set in the early 20th century modern horrors of WWI, it is a look at the social mores of prewar Berlin, and account of some of WWI's horrors, combined with a spy story.

Excellent read. 

Fascination - William Boyd

A collection of short stories by this brilliant and most versatile of writers.
Views of life and the world from a collection of perverts, misfits, failures and marginalized but intelligent people.

Worth rereading.

The Happiness of Blond People - Elif Shafak

subtitled A Personal Meditation on the Dangers of Identity

An interesting short critical essay on the problem of identity in this age of migration.  She basically comes out in praise of cosmopolitanism and subtle, complex personal identities. She highlights the falseness and artificiality of narrow identities and the tendency to stay within these narrow groups and highlights the social problems that arise from this.  While it has a large application, she also makes the point that these narrow identities come into play on both sides in the Muslim issues of current European politics and society.

Armenia: Masterpieces of an Enduring Culture - Theo Maarten van Lint & Robin Meyer

A very large exhibition catalogue of the Bodley Library's Armenian artifacts.  I didn't have time to read the text, but of note are some reproductions of miniature paintings or book illustrations from bibles.  The style is very interesting, and quite different from the Turkish or Iranian illustration style.

Field Notes from the Edge - Paul Evans

A unique, very provocative book in the naturalist vein.  Among other themes, Evans explores how the natural world survives and asserts itself in marginal, damaged and abandoned locations.  He is critical, or at least doubtful, of the conservationist approach to the natural world, and stands back from our human concepts of what natural environments should be.  In some of the essays, he looks at how the genie is already out of the bottle and we cannot turn natural systems back to what they were before - and notes that this preoccupation is a human one, a human concept, not one found in the natural world.  There is a quote in there somewhere to the effect that Nature is always good, even if it is not good for us.
Evans also has a good collection of startling facts, and new biological hypotheses and theories.

Tea at the Midland and other stories - David Constantine

This book shares some stories with the one read earlier, but also includes some different ones.  Subtle writer.  Subtle exchanges, some unspoken, between those who pass their life on the outside.  There is something definitive in each story, but it is hard to say exactly what - or to do so is to end up with only a truncated, simplified version of what is there.

Even Dogs in the Wild - Ian Rankin

The latest Rebus book.  This time the corruption of societies leaders in examined through abuse in youth holding facilities.  He also incorporates the issue of PTSD into the forces pushing one of the main characters to murder.
Superbly wirtten, as usual.

Dispersed but not destroyed : a history of the seventeenth-century Wendat people - Kathryn Magee Labelle

A history of the Wendat people originally living around the south shore of Georgian Bay.  The book looks at their traditional social and political organization, and then goes on to explore their relationship to the French, especially the missionaries and the introduction of Christianity.  It takes a much more subtle look at Christian and non-Christian interaction within the group, and also at the political and social forces that played a role in the Wendat's conversion and continued relationship with the French.  The author discusses how the Wendat sought to use the French connection to further their tribal role as economic intermediaries and negotiators in relationships between various north eastern tribal groups.  She creates a portrait of a very subtle and savvy people looking to best further their goals and survival, which is very different from the older view of the Wendat as losers forced out in a war with the Iroquois.
Another subject explored is the dispersal of the Wendat, some to Quebec, some to further west on the Great Lakes, some into Iroquois territory south of Lake Ontario.  The groups that moved down into Iroquois territory did so very much on their own terms, and then served as middle-men between the French and the Iroquois, who had traditionally aligned with the English and the Dutch.  Turns out the Iroquois raids into Wendat territory were motivated by the need to recruit new members to the tribe after the devastating disease outbreaks of the late 1600s.  The Iroquois' goal was to build a large population formed of all the united Iroquoian groups as a way of having a counterbalance against the English.

A bit academic, but interesting in that it portrays these societies in a much more subtle and active way than traditional historical portrayals.

Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan

An excellent new look at the history of Central Asia and the Silk Road.  Frankopan begins the book with a brief chronological overview and then moves on to look at the movement of goods and ideas from the Far East to Europe from several points of view - luxury goods exchange, idea exchange, culture exchange, religion exchange, slave exchange, disease and plague exchange.  He also pursues the topic beyond the traditional overland route and includes the move to trade by long distance European sailing ships in the concept of Silk Road.  He pursues it into the modern age, looking at the Suez Canal and the eventual Suez Canal crisis as part of the history of the Silk Road.  The book continues right up to contemporary times where Central Asia is undergoing a little recognized renaissance as a trading centre due to its rich natural resources - overlooked perhaps because the benefits largely seem to accrue to the top social echelons, which is actually the traditional wealth distribution structure in Central Asia way back to early Silk Road times.

He also notes patterns in this trade route through the ages - the importance of slave trading as a generator of wealth and capital at the beginning of each group's period of dominance - arabs, Vikings, Europeans.  The tendency of wealth to accrue at the top of society.

Worth rereading.

One Good Story, That One - Thomas King

Another side to Thomas King's writing.  He has spent time with traditional native stories, and this is him playing with the form and bringing in other modern concerns and observations.  Interesting, but for me, not as enjoyable, as deep, as his novels.

Medecine River - Thomas King

Brilliant book.  A novel set out west in a town beside a reserve.  The plot is loosely ties together, more a suite of events tied together by a set of recurring characters.  Classic Thomas King - very human, very humble, with a subtle biting sense of humour.  I especially like how he explores both the characters' humanity as people and at the same time hints subtly at the differences in world view, in "ground" that may be part of being native in Canada.  He both avoids stereotypes and pokes fun at them.  He has a compassionate understanding of human weakness and a fine ear for all forms of bullshit.

The Gaze - Elif Shafak

An odd book about an enormously fat person and a dwarf, although the fat person features as the main focus and sometimes narrator.  There are some magic realism asides which explore earlier events that are supposedly linked to the modern story.
The idea is interesting - the human gaze and how it affects others.  Unfortunately I find it hard going, with too much rambling and too much time recounting the shifts of the main character's inner dialogue.  Not sure I will finish it...

The Toronto Carrying Place - Glenn Turner

A nice bit of local historical work brought to life by an actual ramble along a rough route of the old Carrying Place portage.  Turner works in a lot of early native and settler history along the way, with glimpses of how that history lingers even today.
There are some sections he mentions near the top of the trail by the Holland River that sound like they might be worth walking.
(Book is on my Kindle)

And the Beat Goes On - Ian Rankin

A collection of John Rebus short stories from earlier and later in Rankin's career.  Interesting to see the evolution of the characters as Rebus and others take on more definite shapes and forms.  Not as rich and atmospheric as his novels, but still and enjoyable read.  At the end, there is an interesting short essay by Rankin on how he came to be writing the Rebus stories.  Interestingly, he says his original intent, his original focus was to write about the city of Edinburgh, and Rebus was more a convenient vehicle to get him into both the high life and the low life, and everything in between.

Stamboul Sketches, John Freely

A reread of a classic book on Istanbul from another time.  Always a pleasure to read the little gems of a now mostly disappeared Istanbul, and its people and social customs.  Similar wistful swan song to the books of Orhan Pamuk.  It has suffered the same losses as we in the west - breakdown of daily community ties, loss of the individual and growing social conformity, obsession with material goods as a definition of a life, loss of connection with the natural setting in which we live.  Freely actually explores a broader spectrum of loss than Pamuk, who focuses more on relations and physical environment.

The Architect's Apprentice, Elif Shafak

An interesting portrayal of Istanbul and the Turkish empire in the time of Suleyman and Sinan.  She humanizes many of the historical figures and explores the lives of the many different social stations of the time.  A good story, but a bit contrived in some parts.

Pastoral - Andre Alexis

First book in his philosophical series.  This one focuses on several issues:  nature of love, the idea of maturity, what is the good life, faith and religion vs. living fully in the world, the nature of miracles (supernatural or everyday).
Alexis also plays wonderfully with the pastoral genre:
- a shepherd is required; enter town priest
- life in a simpler, more rural setting; enter small town farming Ontario (complete with sheep)
- critique of corrupted urban life:  enter priest who moves to small town from Ottawa

Alexis is very clever and plays wonderfully with his ideas and form.

Digital Black and White Landscape Photography - Gary Wagner

A nicely done, technical but clear guide to working with RAW images and supporting software to create b & w images.  Built around examples of finished photos, with the various steps and software manipulations itemized.  Finished style worth learning for starters.

Other books to find again:

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield  - thorough but software references may be a bit outdated

Compete Digital Photography - Ben Long

Camera Raw 101 - Jon Canfield

A focused guide to working with RAW images and the software you use.  Thorough but a bit dated. (2009)

Blood of the Celts - Jean Manco

A look at the origins of celtic languages and peoples.  A bit of a confusing narrative, I suppose because it is hard to pin anything down definitely in such remote periods.  The book does confirm the link between the bell beaker people/culture and the ancient celts.  Also their link with metal working, as you the the bell beaker culture jump from one locale to another, each locale a source of minerals for iron working in particular, rather than cover an entire large home area.  There does seem to be an original movement from the east, perhaps north of the Balkans to a homeland around Hallstat in southern Germany, but then the culture pops up all over Europe, even down into Italy at times.  There also seems to be some later movement from Spain back towards the original homeland.  Apart from that, it is hard to really get anything clearer from this book.
One surprising thing is that the genetic sequence of the European copper age population influx seems to originate around Lake Baikal in Siberia.  This genetic group is also related to North American native populations that seem to have spread across Beringia around the same time.

The Nature of the Beast - Louise Penny

Latest mystery novel by Louise Penny.  Her best book yet from a structure and stylistics point of view.  She finds the most intriguing forgotten histories in the Eastern Townships to weave into the plots of her books.

Adrift on the Nile - Naguib Mahfouz

Another more political short novel.  Rather than being a larger chronicle of a vast array of characters, it is a deeper look at a small group of middle-class friends and how they go adrift after the Egyptian revolution tears up the former social fabric and accepted norms of life. An exploration of nihilism and social withdrawal through drugs, sex and social frivolity.

Karnak Cafe - Naguib Mahfouz

A short novel very different from Palace series - less human drama and more a novel of ideas.  And as such less of a compelling read.  Looks at the social and political changes and also the political repression after the Egypt revolution with Nasr.  It is partly an exploration of how the young middle class became disaffected through unjust repression and persecution of social and political groups.

Fifteen Dogs - Andre Alexis

An intriguing book on several levels.

First, the encounter between the modern world and the world of the Greek gods - a wonderful flight of imagination.

Second, the imagining of the life of dogs with a human intelligence.  It is interesting that self-consciousness is the primary effect, a disabling kind of self-consciousness.  Another primary effect is the development of trickery, deception and violence.  There is also the dog who becomes religious as he can imagine a great Pack Master in the sky mirroring his own role on earth.  Also, the dog who becomes a poet, who develops an self-conscious awareness of language as something to play with. Interesting mirror of early human development?  Also, the way he weaves language and consciousness into the the daily lives and activities of dogs.

There is also a lot of reflection on the nature of love and relationships.  Alexis uses this to pull us in finally at an emotional level in relationship to the character Majnoun (interesting choice of name - a Persian character in a love story who is driven divinely mad by thwarted love).

I must search out the rest of his "philosophical novel" series.

A Perfect Spy - John le Carre

A reread (multiple).  I wonder at le Carre's obsession with the duplicity of those who spy for our own good - the thin line between crime and spying for a higher cause.  Why does that theme pull him back again and again?

Orhan's Inheritance - Aline Ohanesian

A story set in the time of the Armenian genocide and also in modern L.A.  Interestingly, it is not just a compendium of the horrors of the genocide (though there is some).  It is actually a story of how the lives of the Turks, Armenians and Kurds were interwoven in complex and human ways, and how the genocide tore that interweaving apart.  A shift in perspective.

Umut Yarına Kaldı - Yavuz Özkan

A strange little film from Turkey made in the 80s.  An artsy film in the sense of Ingmar Berman - not much happens, lots of moody atmosphere - but a lot more awkward and a bit amateurish.
What is interesting about this film is you can see it as one of the last calls from a time and an era that has been lost in Istanbul, from a time before the Anatolian flood.
There is a level of sophistication, a sense of cultured people fallen on hard times.  All of the music is either European classical music or opera. The whole film takes place in a yali along the Bosphorus.  The owner, short of cash perhaps, and from an old moneyed family, rents out rooms in his yali to artists.  There are some lovely views out windows over the Bosphorus as ships and ferries glide by.  In the background there is also a continual symphony of boat horns, seagulls and waves.  There are several scenes in the yali garden right on the edge of the Bosphorus - quite charming.  The yali owner even swims in the Bosphorus!  From another time....

Unfortunately the sound is bad and the dialogue is very hard to follow.

The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia - Andrei Lankov

A well-written, interesting account of the rise and nature of the North Korean State.  Lankov lived there as a foreign exchange student at some point and still seems to maintain contacts there, as well as in other diplomatic circles that share their views of North Korea with him.  Both a factual and personal account from what I would think is one of the better placed people to discuss this secretive regime.
Lankov explains the crazy international relations that Korea follows - attempts to bribe unsupervised aid from other countries that it can use to reward and maintain the Kim family support system within the country.
He also looks at their crazy economic system - or complete lack thereof currently.  Most of the country seems to survive in some kind of economic anarchic state without rules or supervision - anarchic in the sense where everything is negotiable and has its price, both objects, services and dispensations from "rules".
The last two chapters look at various scenarios and issues around what he sees as the inevitable collapse of the current regime.

As an aside, there are also some interesting little bits of information and observation around the fall of communism in Russia and other satellite states from an insider's perspective.

Penguin Lost - Andrey Kurkov

Another book by the Ukranian writer, Kurkov - a sequel to Death and the Penguin.  Quite a subtle writer.  He manages sharp social criticism while at the same time having his characters hover between being despicable and being buffoons.   The politicians are all totally corrupt, venal, (any "democratic" country that has a law protecting sitting politicians from criminal prosecution is just a kleptocracy is disguise) yet at the same time they can do things that benefit some people almost by accident.  Most of the characters seem lost at sea without any kind of compass - except perhaps vodka and cognac....

The Milkman in the Night - Andrey Kurkov

Another book by the author of Death and the Penguin.
A crazy funny dark look at Ukranian society pre-recent revolution through a cast of unusual characters.  Kurkov manages to run the stream of characters on separate tracks right until the last pages of the book, which is quite an accomplishment.
The book encompasses the rich mafia elite that passes for government, the myriad security/criminal forces both public and private, the poor run-of-the-mill citizens, the corrupt church officials who bless anything for a drink and a few dollars, everyone on the make for every little advantage they hold, and a main character who wanders through all three worlds.
There is the member of parliament who stays young by drinking the expressed breast milk of one of the less fortunate characters (great image for sucking on the teat of the country's poor), the somnambulist who leads a double life as a member of a secret nocturnal society, a strange new medicine that makes you a champion of morality and social good...  Simple portraits of the poor and narrow life many people lead on the margins.

Brilliant social criticism - funny, yet at the same time depressing, sobering.  Images from a world where you would not want to live.

The Book of Revenge - Dragan Todorovic

A very personal account of life in the former Yugoslavia before and during the break-up of the country.  Particularly interesting, as the author is basically my age.  For me, it was interesting to compare the account of his childhood life with my childhood - it underlines the poverty and constant struggle of most people's lives in Yugoslavia at that time.
In the author's various incarnations and struggles as a journalist, you can see how ability and merit had little to do with success - your position was far more dependent on toeing the party line and on party connections (Why Nations Fail - a system gamed to reward incompetence; focus above all on maintenance of power).
The story of the life of the author and his intellectual, artistic, thinking friends during the country's break-up and successive wars is quite sad and depressing.  Raised as a generation to believe in a Yugoslav identity, and reaching across ethnic lines within their arts community, the rise of the ethnic nationalists, and their rhetoric and actions, must have seemed like the return of some kind of monster from the depths of an evil fairytale.  There is a real sense of shock, of incomprehension, of the true ugliness of these kinds of movements.  And a shock at how stupid and sheeplike, how easily manipulated the mass of people can be.
Not only this goes, but also their whole economic system falls apart - people suddenly become a lot poorer and a lot less in control of their situation.
So in the end, the thinking, the educated, the intelligent, those with a larger world view, leave the country to the megalomaniacal egotists and the sheep.

A general vision here of where society can go when everything breaks down.  I am reminded of the book, Riddley Walker.

Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton

Similar to the book by Rossos but organized more by topic and issue, and less so by historical perspective.  Poulton also devotes quite a bit of time to the various ethnic groups within Macedonia, their history, and the history of interethnic relations.  The section on modern Macedonia and the issues and conflicts currently affecting politics is very thorough - Albanian, Macedonian relations; the republic's name issue; separatist tendencies, long-term viability of the state.

A good followup read to a general history.

Elegy for Kosovo - Ismail Kadare

A fictional account of the battle on the Field of Blackbirds, and the aftermath.  In actual fact, a parable of the modern Balkans.  Kadare highlights the interethnic rivalries and conflicts that have always plagued the region and prevented any kind of progress or collective action.  He also looks at Europe's longstanding disregard, almost disdain for the Balkans - a kind of Achilles heel of Europe that is always disregarded.  Not my favorite author - a bit heavy-handed in his parable telling for my taste, but still interesting to read.

Mr. Kafka - Bohumil Hrabal

Czech writer from communist period.  A collection of short stories about the absurdities of life under the communists - mixed with an obsession with women.  The observations about life at that time remind me of some of the things Kundera writes about in his earlier books, but Hrabal doesn't have the biting wit, the crushing absurd humor, nor the depth of vision of Kundera.   For my taste, he is also prone stylistic self-indulgence - tried another book too, but it was one long run-on sentence...

In Another Country - David Constantine

English writer, poet and short stories.  This is a collection of short stories.
Constantine has a poet's sense of language.  He writes with a sparse, precise language.  His ability to follow and portray the hidden emotional pathways between two people is a joy to read.  The stories themselves are a bit depressing or unsettling, and they explore the hidden sides of life between people, the buried parts, the irrational parts.  No judgement, just tender observation.

Would like to have a look at some of his poetry.

The Long Road Home - KIm Yong

The story of an escapee from North Korea.  Kim Yong starts off as an orphan, but ends up as part of the elite of North Korea.  He lives in Pyong Yang and is part of the shadow pirate economy that collects foreign exchange through illegal cash trading on international markets to finance the elite's life style.  He is completely swallowed up in the machine.  Through some counterrevolutionary family connections that come out at one point, he ends up in the work camp/death camp system that operated some of the basic economy, such as coal mining.  He then escapes to China, and eventually South Korea.

A surprising story.  You get a look at the Land of Oz that is Pyong Yang in an otherwise desperate country.  You get a look at the desperate conditions of the work camp system.  What you don't get is any view, any understanding of the life of the average peasant or worker outside of Pyong Yang.  It is as if he never even saw the rest of the country - and yet there are stories of him driving all over the country to procure items for export.  As if he is completely blinded by the ideology, the privileges, the social gulf between rulers and ruled.
Another thing is, in spite of the harsh end to his life in North Korea, he emerges with all his inculcated propaganda intact, even in prison never having questioned the nature of the state and its messages.  Strange.

Macedonia and the Macedonians - Andrew Rossos

An excellent overview of Macedonian history from ancient times to the present.  It answered many of the questions I had about how Macedonia came to be such an important part of Balkan, and modern European, history.
Excellent discussion of how, over many years, the Macedonian people struggled to assert their identity and establish a homeland in spite of almost constant resistance from Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia.  Quite an accomplishment, actually.  Really the work of the people themselves, as they had no foreign sponsors, no Macedonian church, no strong political elite or association for most of their history.
There is also some interesting discussion of Macedonia's place in Yugoslavia - the Yugoslavian communists were the first (and only) to recognize Macedonians as a distinct ethnic group and support the establishment of a Macedonian state.
Didn't read every detail of the 20th century ins and outs of the struggle, but the book is well set up for skimming, with a summary at the beginning of each more detailed chapter.

The Automobile Club of Egypt - Alaa Al Aswany

By the author of the Yacoubian Building, but in a very different style.  There is something akin to Mahfouz in this substantial novel - maybe the host of characters, maybe the small street that all the book grows out from, maybe the glimpse into different socia classes.  A very good read.  An interesting, critical chronicle of the lives of the characters, and through them, a social history, a social critique, a critique of colonialism and empire.  Also a history of the period just before Nasser and the Egyptian revolution.
An excellent writer.  Worth rereading.

Borderland and Other Stories - Graham Swift

A very tight writer.  Short stories exploring unobtrusive moments of significance in people's lives.   He has the knack of switching voices as he switches stories and characters.

Natural Novel - Georgi Gospodinov

Even more meandering than his book I read earlier, The Physics of Sorrow.  He has actually managed to create a novel essentially without a story.  Endless short meanderings about many characters and subjects - toilets and bathroom history, flies, village life, language.  The author also slips in and out of various personae.  There is a loose thread of the story of main character's marriage and divorce.  This provides just enough tension and continuity to tie everything together somehow.

You begin to see some themes, some motifs present in his other books as you read this one - homeless people, the marginalized, eccentric or downright crazy people leading strange lives in half-abandoned villages.  Recurring images.  Why?  He is a very personal writer so it is hard to imagine the symbolism or significance.

The Stone Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro

Such a strange book.  Set in England  in the period after the Romans have left England, and everything has fallen apart.  Almost like a bizarre venture into the fantasy-historic genre.  King Arthur is mentioned; Sir Gawain in his old, rusty age appears; there is a dragon; the language is a bit stilted and fake.  Couldn't finish it.
I wonder where that book came from...  So unlike the rest of his work.

L'Identité - Milan Kundera

C'est la première fois que je n'arrive pas à finir un livre de Kundera.  Pour moi, le focus était trop petit, trop recherché - le rapport minutieux entre un homme et une femme, le chronique de leurs inquiétudes et insécurités intérieures sous une petite vacance plannifiée.  En général, ses livres écrits en français sont de plus petite envergure.

The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson

A novel set in North Korea.
The first half follows the life of the main character, Jun Do, with bits from childhood to early adulthood.  The book presents a frightening picture of life in North Korea - poverty, desperation, paranoia, the ever present Big Brother, the tenuousness of everyone's existence, from the bottom to the elite, other bizarre practices - building replicas of the the Wild West, luxury autos, kidnapping scientists and artists from other countries, the bizarre loudspeaker broadcasts that are apparently part of every environment.  If this book is accurate, North Korea has gone much further than even Stalin.
The second half bends towards the demands of the American publishing industry, and introduces a convoluted love story.  You learn some interesting facts about life in this section, but not as much.

For me, there is something particularly horrifying about this type of all-present, overwhelming system.  (Stalin's system, also.)  A ruling elite, a "government" can not care about you, can ignore you, can use you, but still you have yourself and your life that you lead; you have your reality, as miserable as it may be.  In the Korean and Russian intrusive state model, you don't even get to keep your reality.  You have your experience of misery, of struggle but  it cannot be acknowledged.  The State narrative of paradise, of caring, of the idealistic struggle must be internalized somehow or you die.  Your tormentor, your exploiter must be called your Great Leader, must be thanked, must be worhipped.  I can't imagine how dislocating, how disturbing at a fundamental level, that must be.  Society and all human relations themselves become unreal.  How do you recover from that?

Nocturnes - Kazuo Ishiguro

A collection of short stories where music plays a key role in each story.  A very classical writer - restrained, subtle, indirect.  A master of the complexities and subtle undercurrents of human interaction  - hinting, pointing but never stating clearly, as things generally aren't clear.  The stories just are - difficult to pin down, to grasp and explain.  Several stories though, have a underlying theme of social criticism, especially of what could be described as American culture or values.

The Sirens of Baghdad - Yasmina Khadra

A novel set in Iraq.  The story of a young man from an isolated village in Iraq.  It traces the effects of the American invasion and occupation on his village, his family and his own life - the loss, the brutality, the humiliation, the cultural conflicts.  Basically a story of the logic of radicalization of a young man at the hands of the West.  Interesting to get a different perspective on this whole debacle.

And Other Stories - Georgi Gospodinov

A collection of very bizarre short stories from Bulgaria.  Very creative, almost surrealistic at times.  Even more out there than his novel, The Physics of Sorrow.  Worth rereading.

Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson

A brilliant analyses of the state of many of the world's countries based on the nature of the economic and political structures within the country, and also the relationship between the two.
They analyze many examples to back up their central ideas.
They analyze both economics and governments based on two polar opposites which are different aspects of the same dichotomy.  Economically, there are inclusive or extractive structures operating.  Politically, there are inclusive or exclusive/oligarchic/dictatorial structures in place.  Inclusive economic structures encourage the dispersion of wealth through society, extractive structures concentrate wealth at the top.  Inclusive structures encourage innovation, economic renewal/evolution and competition.  Exclusive structures discourage investment and promote stasis and stagnation, as change threatens the economic and political elite.  Same for exclusive/inclusive political structures. Oligarchic or dictatorial political structures can promote strong short-term growth as they can dictate where resources, both financial and human, are directed.  The growth does not last, though, because of the tendency towards stasis and economic stagnation to guard positions of privilege.
They analyze various political and economic structures - colonialism and post-colonial government and economics, Stalin, Britain, China, and others - within their parameters, and a lot of it makes sense.  I find I am seeing current events and history in a different light using these concepts.

There are also several sections on a question that has puzzled me for quite some time - how the British ended up developing this particular democratic system in combination with a strong economy.  An interesting read.

Some other ideas worth considering - the importance of a centralized state as a prerequisite for inclusive economic and political structures.  Centralized states can go both ways, but without centralized power there is no chance for inclusive structures.  Everything is just chaos and infighting.

Another is the sheer chance of Britain and Europe developing the systems they now have.  They talk about critical historical junctures, or moments of possible conflict - which forces win is not a forgone conclusion.   If you are lucky, the inclusive forces win and life improves for most people.  If not...
It also makes you realize that the continued existence of inclusive structures and economies is not a given; they can be slowly eroded by small changes in laws and regulations - I think you see this happening to a degree in the U.S. for the past decade or two.

The ideas in this book also make you realize the enormous difficulties of changing exclusive structures in failed and failing states, as these structures often have very deep historical roots.  Our current structures are the result of centuries of slow change and growth - it is close to impossible to impose these in a country in a short time, especially if the elites benefit from the existing exclusive structures.

Another idea that strikes me is that most people on the planet live in extractive economic structures of varying degrees, and with no real political or social power.  I can't imagine what it is like to live in a society where you are seen as something to be exploited (labour, taxes) and where the government has absolutely no care taking function.  Pirate states...

Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov

A very quirky novel by a Ukrainian author who writes in Russian.  First published in 1996.
An odd story of a writer of obituaries caught up in some murderous account setting and struggle over the spoils of a post Glasnost world.  A cast of odd-ball characters and a sense of everyone wandering through a circus show, blown here and there by winds beyond their control, as well as their own demons.  The most intriguing character is the main character's pet penguin, adopted from a zoo when the post-communist zoo could no longer afford to feed the animals.  Hard to say or what the penguin is.  Unless he represents perhaps the author, sad and lost in a world he doesn't recognize.

More books in the series to read!