Comments on: Books of the Year 2012 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/ Sat, 18 May 2013 11:12:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Odds and ends | Res Studiorum et Ludorum http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4202 Odds and ends | Res Studiorum et Ludorum Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:25:07 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4202 [...] On Helen Rittelmeyer’s recommendation, I read Kenzaburo Oe’s novel, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age. It’s an [...]

]]> By: Helen Rittelmeyer http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4059 Helen Rittelmeyer Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:51:12 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4059 I have not. Nor have I read any Ronald Knox, though I have one of his mystery novels sitting on my shelf.

]]> By: Helen Rittelmeyer http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4058 Helen Rittelmeyer Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:44:59 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4058 I love Towers of Trebizond. She makes such versatile use of the word "yok." I tried to read another of her novels, They Were Defeated. Though I vaguely remember liking the first half, and thinking I would probably like it a lot more if I knew anything about the Cavalier Poets, I never finished it.

Now that I think about it, NYRB Classics released three of the books that very nearly made my top ten (Elaine Dundy's The Old Man and Me, which is like a Patricia Highsmith novel with a sense of humor, T.H. White's The Goshawk, and J.F. Powers's Morte D'Urban) and two of the books that would have been included if I hadn't reviewed them on the blog already (Stammering Century and the Custine). I didn't realize how much they'd dominated my reading year.

]]> By: Christopher http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4056 Christopher Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:54:28 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4056 "The different one" of the NYRB Classics that I'm reading is Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond. It's about a woman who travels through Turkey with her aunt and a bigoted old Anglican priest. Billy Graham is involved, somehow? I think you'd like it.

]]> By: David Collard http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4053 David Collard Fri, 04 Jan 2013 07:51:30 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4053 It is good, but she has little clue about what Dilwyn Knox was doing as a codebreaker in WWII.

Have you read Evelyn Waugh's "Ronald Knox"?

]]> By: Withywindle http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4049 Withywindle Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:49:15 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4049 Happy New Year!

My favorite Patrick Leigh Fermor memoirs are also from NYRB Classics.

]]> By: Camassia http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4048 Camassia Mon, 31 Dec 2012 22:00:39 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4048 Oh wow, I read An African In Greenland about 20 years ago and felt like I was the only one who knew of its existence. Your interpretation never really occurred to me though. I loved the scene where he first arrives in Greenland and gains lodging by knocking on the first door he sees and going, "Can you put me up?" The fact that the lady of the house answered "Of course," gave me an inkling that there are certain commonalities to village life all over the world, that we urbanites have lost.

]]> By: John Harmon http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4047 John Harmon Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:41:07 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4047 Ten bucks says your description of the New Yorker really a description of National Review.

]]> By: Helen Rittelmeyer http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4046 Helen Rittelmeyer Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:42:09 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4046 A couple people have recommended The Knox Brothers to me, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I know nothing about her fiction, though I remember you wrote nice things about The Blue Flower.

Yeah, the folks at NYRB Classics know how to pick 'em. I am developing a pavlovian response to their signature cover design. "Brightly colored box containing sans serif text . . . must buy!"

]]> By: Christopher http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4045 Christopher Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:29:54 +0000 http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/helen-rittelmeyer/2012/12/31/books-of-the-year-2012/#comment-4045 These all sound really interesting. I almost bought The Radiance of the King (I'm not sure who is releasing those editions, but they all look fascinating) but settled on a different one. Maybe I'll go back and pick it up.

I'm about to go do my top ten right now. Have you ever read Penelope Fitzgerald?

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