Books and politics, with Roberto Bolaño and “The Savage Detectives”

In the year 2015 I ran for mayor of New Albany. During a candidate Q & A, I became the first mayoral candidate in...

Louisville beer, now and then (or, my 2014 review of Kevin Gibson’s “Louisville Beer”...

Because, I really nailed this one. --- Louisville Beer, Now and Then “Anyone who has groped among the dark beer dungeons which lie for a number...

Books: “The Cold War from the Margins” in Bulgaria

In May I read a good book about a little-known aspect of the Cold War. The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State...

The books I read in 2020

From December 22, 2020 at NA Confidential. Some articles from late in the year were not archived here, and this is one of them.  The...

“Trieste,” a novel by Daša Drndić

It can be daunting, perhaps even crippling, to consider the immensity of what remains unknown about the wider world. What we as individuals know...

“When the Doves Disappeared,” a novel by Sofi Oksanen

The novel is called When the Doves Disappeared, written by the Finnish/Estonian author Sofi Oksanen. The English translation was released in 2015. The publisher...

Times change, but Ernest Hemingway was an inspiration to this youthful traveler

Originally published as "(Ernest) Hemingway in a time of mercifully silent thunder" on April 23, 2020. A Ken Burns documentary about Hemingway is coming...

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Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 7: Vienna and the dawning of a Habsburg fixation

Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 6: Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser. During my stay in Rome, a veteran Australian wanderer taught me a “wedding...

Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 6: Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser

 (I'm including examples of songs I heard while in Europe in 1985. I'd like to say that I recall music of local origin, but...

Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 5: A critical Mass in Rome — and the famous...

Musical introduction, or "the songs I heard playing in 1985 as I traveled around Europe." I had no Walkman or radio of my own,...