The Reading Life Review - November, 2018

November Authors 

“Portents accompany the death of monarchs. A white horse trots slowly along the avenue, a woman in streaming wet garments is seen to enter the throne room, vanishes, and leaves wet footmarks; red mice are caught in the palace mousetraps. For several weeks five black swans had circled incessantly above the castle of Elfhame. It was ninety decades since their last appearance; then there were four of them, waiting for Maharit, Queen Tiphaine’s predecessor. Now they were five, and waited for Tiphaine. Mute as a shell cast up on the beach, she lay in her chamber watching the antics of her pet monkey.”. Sylvia Townsend Warner

Column One

1. Carl Hiaasen- USA- Newberry Award Winner
2. Theodor Storm- Germany- 19th Century Novelist 
3. Thomas Mann - Germany
4. Walter Kempowski- Germany - Chronicler of World War Two Germany

Column Two

1. Marianna Enríquez- Argentina - powerful dark short stories 
2. Alison Macleod - Canada 
3. Thomas Bernhard - Austria- 
4. Mavis Gallant- Canada

Column Three

1. Sylvia Townsend Warner - UK - Kingdom of Elkins 
2. Dana Johnson - USA- winner of The Flannery O’Connor Prize 
3. Maeve Brennan - Ireland

Column Four

1. Anjali Sachdeva- USA - exceptional short stories
2. Brian Kirk - Ireland - following for years
3. Thomas Fallada - Must read novels on Weimar and Nazi Germany

Countries of Residence 

1. Germany - 5
2. USA - 3
3. Ireland- 2
4. Canada - 2
5. Argentina- 1
6. Austria- 1

There were seven men and seven women featured in November, six living writers and eight having passed to another realm.  Four of the writers were featured for the first time, ten are old companions.  

Blog Stats

As of November 30, The Reading Life has had 5,486,432 page views 

Home Countries of Visitors:

USA, India, Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, France, UK, Canada, Germany and Indonesia 

There are plans to give one billion Indians internet access, once this occurs, I expect a major increase in readership.  

Of the five most viewed posts, three are on short stories by authors from the Philippines and two from India

As far as I know, no other book blog anywhere regularly posts on older short stories from South and South East Asia. 

There are currently 3445 posts on The Reading Life

I read in November three works biographies on which I did not post, all very good books.

1. Funny Man:Mel Brooks by Patrick McGilligan
2. Neruda: The Poet’s Calling by Mark Eisner 
3. Milena:The Tragic Story of Kafka’s Great Love by Margarete Buber-Neumann

I offer my great thanks to Max u for his kind provision of Amazon Gift Cards

December plans and hopes.

I plan to read two nonfiction recently published works focusing on World War Two in Asia

I hope to push on with my nearing completion read through of Honore de Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine.

Mel u