Thanks Marc!

During my (admittedly rather fragmentary) visits to Romania the golden helmet of Coțofeneşti was the single most mesmerising thing I ever saw, a whole world contained in one object. Difficult to overstate its civilizational importance

Martin Pollack 1944-2025. A friend, a guide, an example. One of the great Austrian writers of the last half century, a conceptualiser of the moral heritage of WWII, a human link to eastern Europe & populariser of Polish and Ukrainian literature. It might be a time to read his Dead Man in the Bunker

Don't think I 've ever experienced a Croatian election in which so few friends bothered to vote and even avoided talking about.

Was thinking of going out to vote simply to enjoy the juvenile pleasure of invalidating my ballot by drawing rude pictures, but even that seems like a depressingly pointless waste of effort

‘We will glorify war – and scorn for women’: Marinetti, the futurist Mussolini sidekick who outdid Elon Musk He was the brilliant yet alarming writer of the Futurist Manifesto, a bohemian poet jailed with Mussolini who helped forge the modern world. As a new show re-examines his troubling legacy, we explore ...

I've read my fair share of Marinetti's writings over the years and much as I dislike the man I can't see any meaningful comparisons between him and Musk. I suspect the latter was parachuted into the article to serve as clickbait.
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

2/2. Often unfairly des cribed as a generational novel because the protagonist is in her 20s, it actually has universal things to say about lust, love and the way we come to terms with our obsessions. With action shifting from Prague to Spain it's also a very European tale of movement and searching.

Croatian books I read in 2024 & which deserve an international audience kick off with Dora Šustić's Psi ("Dogs"; originally publ. in 2022 but I'm a bit slow), a story of a Croatian film student in Prague and her passionate encounter with an older man. 1/2

Well that's one way of reversing the tendency towards low turn-outs

Reading Cro historian Grga Novak's 1933 account of his trip to Egypt which (quite apart from being a gem of a travel book) clearly shows that most of the 'relevatory' themes featured in Nat Geo and Viasat History documentaries about Egypt were already well known to the educated public of the 1930s

Remilitarization of the Panamaland. Get away with that and the world's his oyster

Xmas 1920-2024... Some lessons from D'Annunzio's Fiume by one of its most perceptive historians

Yup. Silver Bone came out in 2024, a sequel called The Stolen Heart is, as far as I know, due in 2025.

Few translators better placed than @bdralyuk.bsky.social to draw out the wit and poetry embedded in Kurkov's deceptively straight-to-the-point storytelling style

2024's best translated fiction part 3: few are better than Kurkov when it comes to mixing strong characters, a sense of period, narrative thrills and ironic humour. And he only seems to get better at pulling these things off, while making serious points about the identity of Ukraine at the same time

Translated by Angela Rodel, publ. by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social

2024's best translated fiction from CEE part 2: Bulgarian Vera Mutafchieva's highly original 1967 novel about the C15 Ottoman prince who challenged his brother for the throne. Takes the form of a case file containing witness statements of Cem's contemporaries. sandorfpassage.org/product/the-...

So my list of 2024's best CEE-region transated fiction would kick off with Croatian Damir Karakaš's Celebration (publ. @twolinespress.bsky.social), a deeply nuanced and disarmingly lyrical exploration of the links between harsh landscape, rural poverty, emotional damage and political extremes.

The history book I most enjoyed reading in 2024 is @alicehunt.bsky.social's Republic, a deftly woven account of a decade uniquely full of change, ideas, ambiguities and possibilities. It also has something of the thriller about it: we know that the republic fell, but keep on reading to find out why

I know you can't live on empathy and positive vibes but am sending some just in case

I grew up on the other side of the Chevin... different world really

I read it in 2.5 days flat, which tells its own story. Have wanted to buy & read it since it first came out, sorry it took me so long. (I grew up just outside Leeds btw, and thought I knew the city until I read Ghost Signs...)

Thanks, best wishes & hope your week improves!

I don't think there's an obvious entry point (they're all good in different ways) - but historical novels Paradise (1994) followed by After Lives (2020) is one way to go: the second seems like an indirect sequel to the first

It's also an outstanding work of travel literature, a contemporary odyssey through city and suburbs that's full of love for place & people as well as outrage at the poverty and dereliction lurking behind a facade of normality. Makes other books of travel and place look frivolous in comparison.

As an intimate portrait of a society riven by inequality and failing welfare, it's gritty, disturbing, but also full of empathy - and remains profoundly relevant as a sourcebook of the UK's social and political ills

Finally got to grips with one of the outstanding UK non-fiction books of recent years, a searing account of Leeds during the lockdowns - when author @stuhennigan.bsky.social was a volunteer delivering food & meds to the needy and isolated. Published by indie mavericks @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social

TouchScreenTravels Independent travel apps to guide the independent traveller

What with xmas markets in Zagreb and Tallinn it's an opportune/istic moment to mention that I wrote travel guides in app form to both these places (Croatia's Best and Tallinn & Estonia's Best) for Touchscreen Travels. Availble for I-phone & android (and 50% off this week) www.touchscreentravels.com

Moving in Circles: On Celebration by Damir Karakaš - Asymptote Blog [The] translation is exemplary . . . Karakaš’s original language lends itself to vivid descriptions, figurative imagery, and crisp exchanges.

"Spirited prose, microscopic attention to character and environment"; praise for Damir Karakaš's haunting landscape-and-history novel Celebration (publ. @twolinespress.bsky.social) from Robert Allen Papinchak at Asymptote www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2024/12...

My copy just arrived. Early xmas treat