Welcome to the European Review of Books
What is the European Review of Books? A primer, if you are here for the first time.
The pulverization of memory
Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
The art of losing
On artificial intelligence, murderous elephants & Elizabeth Bishop
« My ghost, we do no batshit »
On the untranslatability of Ukrainian jokes
Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag
On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish & global Englisch. « My own language, made camp. »
An archeology of the air
On Havelok the Dane, medieval air & the world’s largest wind farm
Reviews
Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity
Reviewed by Ingo Venzke
Edda Mussolini: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe
Reviewed by Sarah Watling
The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
Reviewed by Charles S. Maier
Distant Fathers
Reviewed by Eloisa Morra
Motley Stones
Reviewed by Peter Frederick Matthews
Im Wald der Metropolen
Reviewed by Walter Grünzweig
Latest
The Mass of Mies
« Less is more »? The scale and shape of his body gave the architect Mies van der Rohe an unequaled weight and architectural authority.
Found in translation
Or, the art of the error
The inborn germ
Why death? Who or what dies? Philosophers tend not to explain, but to justify. When do such questions become biological questions? Does it help?
No man’s land
On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
The invention of austerity
Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
Doom is in the details
Floods, hailstorms, plague, fire, children lost on a mountain or trapped for years in a ruined villa. On the stories of Adalbert Stifter.
The cemetery-goer
On the travels of Karl-Markus Gauß, and the unlikely guardians of the dream of Europe.
How to people a landscape
On Cyril Schäublin’s Unrueh (2022), cinema & scale. « No other film has so resized me. »
WHOOOO
A story about a lonely railway guard on a desolate steppe. « In the cursed August of 1991 the radio informed Kasatonov that there was a state of emergency in the capital. Then it fell silent, as if the receiver had broken. »
Perhentian Sunrise
A story about romance. « The eve of a suitor’s arrival, bigger than Christmas or birthday, I tell you. »
Top pearls
1
On Natalia Ginzburg’s Valentino
On Natalia Ginzburg’s Valentino, newly translated: a Q&A with Alexander Chee.
2
Bee Gees FAQ
Fragen, Antworten, Quintessenzen.
3
It wasn’t the beer
How could it be that despite decades of rigorous European unification, of open borders and largely adjusted standards of living, a virus was able to kill up to 40 times more people in one country than in another, only a few hundred kilometers away?
Es war nicht das Bier
Wie konnte es sein, dass trotz jahrzehntelanger rigoroser europäischer Einigung, offener Grenzen und weitgehend angeglichener Lebensstandards ein Virus in einem Land bis zu 40 Mal mehr Menschen töten konnte als in einem anderen, nur wenige hundert Kilometer entfernt?
4
Firsts in space
A friend of mine likes to say that the moon landing was real, but dumb. On astronautical tokenism.
5
How to write; or, how to insult
Shoulders were slapped, fingers pointed, hearts fired up. Perhaps a little scuffle broke out after class, a boisterous wrestling over insults exchanged. Nothing to be concerned about. Acquiring knowledge was, after all, a combative affair.
Welcome to the European Review of Books
What is the European Review of Books? A primer, if you are here for the first time.
The invention of austerity
Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
The pulverization of memory
Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
Perhentian Sunrise
A story about romance. « The eve of a suitor’s arrival, bigger than Christmas or birthday, I tell you. »
Doom is in the details
Floods, hailstorms, plague, fire, children lost on a mountain or trapped for years in a ruined villa. On the stories of Adalbert Stifter.
Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag
On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish & global Englisch. « My own language, made camp. »
The cemetery-goer
On the travels of Karl-Markus Gauß, and the unlikely guardians of the dream of Europe.
« My ghost, we do no batshit »
On the untranslatability of Ukrainian jokes
How to people a landscape
On Cyril Schäublin’s Unrueh (2022), cinema & scale. « No other film has so resized me. »