Georges Perec spent years feeding his analyst false dreams and tidy confessions — leaving him feeling, as the analyst later wrote, "a terrible hollowness."
A reflection on @grantamag.bsky.social new Therapy issue, in this week's free ERB newsletter.
europeanreviewofbooks.com/newsletter/
"The first word I ever wrote was 'pisser' — this is how Nanny called me to my face."
😊
Here’s an essay about a bastard language born of centuries of violence, and what happened when we tried to translate it.
In this week's free ERB newsletter:
europeanreviewofbooks.com/newsletter/
"We edited, while the embassies destroyed documents and evacuated from Kyiv."
An essay 4 years in the making — drafted before the invasion, rewritten as it began, revised again as Bucha was liberated.
The full piece is in this week's free ERB newsletter.
europeanreviewofbooks.com/newsletter/
The 2026 Munich Security Report states: “the US-led post-1945 international order is now under destruction”
What can one do?
Here’s Queen Maxima, who enrolled as a reservist in the Dutch Army because, says the Ministry of Defence: "The safety of The Netherlands can no longer be taken for granted”
The Danish novel is a classic from 1940: ‘De kolde flammer – roman fra Grønland’, from Knud Sømersby.
The Greenlandic: 'Crimson’ from Niviaq Korneliussen – good read!
The President of the US just called Greenland “a piece of ice.”
Just that? I turned to fiction.
Yes, in the Danish novel De kolde Flammar, nature groans and glaciers squeak.
But in contemporary Greenlandic novel it’s: boredom, desire, alcohol, and colonial trauma.
That’s fiction. Not truth.
The Vatican, neurologists, and engineers all ask: what does it mean to be human?
Maybe the answer is simpler than code.
We suffer, we love, we endure.
And that, still, no AI can imitate.
europeanreviewofbooks.com/can-ai-have-...
The Vatican defends humankind against authoritarian tech… just read:
✊ ANTI BLACK FRIDAY ✊
Hé rebel!
Tell all you’re charged double, because YOU are different.
Pay €230 instead of €105, and become a benefactor — with tote bag, pin, stickers, but foremost:
the honor of paying more than asked for.
You are a contrarian hero.
europeanreviewofbooks.com/subscribe/
Thanks! Books: yes! But before we invest time, we have to grow (which we do) to enough subscribers.
EU-subsidies? I’m skeptic: too many hoops to jump through, joint applications, in the end too much goes to ‘structures’, ‘platforms’, ‘initiatives’ and bureaucrats instead of quality products
Funding ideas? I’m meek, but curious.
10.000 — help! we have success ✨
Our newsletter just passed 10,000 readers (now 10,600!) — from Europe, Canada, India… hello India! 🇮🇳
So happy.
We focused on quality writing + design, then got new team members, and now we’re growing fast — I may need to come back soon with a second crowdfunding…
Any fool can see the head of state is naked, a complete phony.
I see The Emperor’s New Clothes referred to more often, and wondered: is it about the vanity of a leader? Or about citizens that keep nodding at what they know isn’t there?
europeanreviewofbooks.com/current-preo...
Lenin youth is made to salute an embalmed dictator, becomes Catholic schoolgirl, then historian of repression, and writer on sabbatical in Rome, with a book on the Bulgarian gulag — plus she met Pope Francis at the Biennale ✊
europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...
Eurovision?
This weekend it is Intervision: Russia + US + China + Brazil ao
And Europe?
Europe is busy perfecting its eye-roll routine…
Train punctuality:
🇩🇪 #Germany: 70%
🇵🇱 #Poland: 80%
🇺🇦 #Ukraine: 95%
Hard not to be humbled by this.
Oksana Forostyna reviews The Train Arrives on Time by Marichka Paplauskaite
europeanreviewofbooks.com/glory-to-the...
Sixteen children. A dynasty across Europe. Still haunting politics.
europeanreviewofbooks.com/queen-of-the...
(free)
One of the year’s best just got longlisted for the Booker:
One Boat, from @jcbuckley.bsky.social
Buckley’s writing really stands out.
I actually texted him this year, and asked:
‘How did you learn to write?’
europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...
@cantavest.bsky.social
@aluckmann.bsky.social
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Sunday reading: “How to abandon an archive. When an authoritarian regime collapses, what happens to the archives of its secret police?” europeanreviewofbooks.com/how-to-aband... on the archives of Syrian secret services (via @europeanreview.bsky.social, by @uungor.bsky.social and Ali Ajasem)
Unpaywalled: The European review of love itself.
In « The great schizophrenia » Nikianna Dinenis unpacks Marlen Haushofer’s Killing Stella & the enemy hiding in those we have to love.
Read « The great schizophrenia » here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-great-sc...
@sanderpleij.bsky.social texted with Daniel Gascón, Madrid-based editor of @letraslibres.com, a Spanish-language literary magazine. Daniel tips the writer Mariano Gistain.
Read it here: europeanreviewofbooks.com/texting-with...
Adult content. People! We have adult content. Go to our website!
Free adult content, now what about that?
Now how to explain this? I need some scholarly advice here @fuchsflrn.bsky.social
