Tag: Tree Book

  • The Book of Tea

    This was one interesting booklet from the Little Black Classics. It’s fun how it sometimes throws things at you that you were not expecting. This is, as the name suggests, a book on Tea. It also tries to turn tea in a philosophy, but I mainly found the information on the traditional ways of making/drinking… →

  • A Nervous Breakdown

    I recently saw my first Chekhov play, Uncle Vanya, just before the lockdown. And seeing the masterly crafted sadness there, I was not surprised that the stories included in A Nervous Breakdown would also focus for a large part on mental health/happiness. Especially the first two stories, A Nervous Breakdown and The Black Monk were… →

  • The Queen of Spades

    This was a very nice read, and definitely one of the better Little Black Classics I have read. Also, it was my introduction to Pushkin. The story features a man obsessed with what is supposed to be the secret magical set of cards with which to win a fortune. Needless to say, this does not… →

  • The Sandman

    This was a very strange story and not at all what I had expected. I recently also saw a ballet based on the story and it was much lighter than this. The Sandman was rather dark and slightly depressing. Interesting choice from the Little Black Classics because it was not something I would have normally… →

  • Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London

    Two stars only, despite the fact that the subject is London and I would really like to go there this summer but with Corona, it is unsure whether this will be possible! To me, this felt like John Gay wanted to write an epic tale about, walking through London. There is loads of references to… →

  • O frabjous day!

    I am not overly familiar with Lewis Carroll’s work since I never liked Alice in Wonderland too much (the movies, never read the books). His poetry was completely new to me, but after I recently read Edward Lear’s nonsense poetry (which was being compared as similar to Lewis Carroll) I was not looking forward to… →

  • Oroonoko

    What I like about the Little Black Classics is that you are reading so many different authors, including ones that you had never heard of before encountering them in this series. Aphra Behn was one of those, and to be honest, reading about her was the most interesting part of this classic for me. Aphra… →

  • Seven Hanged

    Seven Hanged was exactly why I like the Little Black Classics! I had never even heard of the author, and the subject of the book was so dark (the final weeks/days of seven people condemned to death) but I really liked it. Russian books always have this kind of depressing atmosphere, and Seven Hanged even… →

  • Letters to a Young Poet

    I recently came across Rilke in a movie – I believe it was Marriage Story – which I watched just before it was the turn for Letters to a Young Poet. That I hadn’t really had any prior knowledge of Rilke goes to show that I don’t know a lot about poetry. This collection however… →

  • Why I am so Clever

    Every week I read one Little Black Classic and this week’s is Nietzsche supposedly self-mocking autobiography. I can be quick. To me, I found it less self-mocking and more like a man who is rather full of himself. Sure, he is exaggerating and it shows, but with this kind of snub undertones that go on… →

  • The Frogs

    All year I’ve been reading one of the Little Black Classics each week, with different levels of success. Going into The Frogs, I has no idea what to expect. It turned out to be a play (I like plays), and as such a Greek comedy. I’ve in school studied some Greek theater, but these were… →

  • Nonsense

    This was utter nonsense! I guess the title should have given fair warning, but I was still surprised at it. Maybe I was missing a lot, but I could not get anything out of these poems and was just hoping the book would finish quickly. Really not my cup of tea. Nonsense (Little Black Classics… →

  • The Withered Arm

    The Withered Arm was a nice addition to the Little Black Classics collection. It has a bit of that late 19th Century feel to it with a story of a new bride who gets cursed through one of her dreams. It was an interesting story. The only thing I had previously read by Thomas Hardy… →

  • The Nun of Murano

    I was unsure what to expect from this one. Okay, I knew exactly what I was expecting from Casanova, but this was also coming from the 18th Century and as such I still found it more explicit than I would have thought. Part of the larger collection of his escapades this focuses on an episode… →

  • Typhoon

    It has been a while since I read something by Joseph Conrad – in all honesty I only ever read the other Little Black Classics Tomorrow – but I liked that one so I was looking forward to Typhoon. A storm at see, terrible odds, what was not to like? And this was nice, but… →

  • Crippen

    I’m a great fan of John Boyne’s books. I started of course with The boy in the striped pyjamas, but have since read almost all his books. There are very few authors whose books I look forward to as much as I do with his. This book is set in 1910 (and the years before… →

  • How To Be a Medieval Woman

    How To Be a Medieval Woman was like the polar opposite to last week’s Little Black Classic: The Suffragettes, and it was a terrible read. Maybe if the main character was not called ‘said creature’ the entire time, THIS creature would have somewhat enjoyed reading it. This was what put me off right from the… →

  • The Suffragettes

    This year I plan to read one of these Little Black Classics a week, so that I will finish them (currently at #94 of 127) and can start with the Little Mint Classics (the Modern classics). The Suffragettes was first on the list, and while it would have been a perfect read for last years… →

  • A Modern Detective

    Alas, this unfortunately was anything but a Modern Detective story. Poe is mostly remembered for his horror and/or plain weird stories and not as a writer of detective stories and after reading this Little Black Classic it is easy to see why. His literary detective solves crimes from his armchair, discussing the case based on… →

  • Kidnapped

    This was an interesting and quite shocking account of Olaudah Equiano, a freedman in 18th century Great Britain who’s autobiography was important for the abolition of slave trade. Rather, this edition contained some chapters from his autobiography As has been the case for many of the collected editions in the Little Black Classics, the selection… →

  • The Yellow Book

    I like that Penguin collected in these Little Black Classics a couple of collections which are not, strictly speaking, books. The Yellow Book is one of them, a quarterly magazine with a collection of prose and verse from around the fin-de-siecle. It was the kind of thing that I would have never selected for myself,… →

  • Green Tea

    Was it real? Was it all in his head? Or maybe in his green tea? A typical Victorian horror story where a clergyman drink green tea and starts seeing things that aren’t really there. I found that nothing actually happened here, so I was left feeling rather disappointed. Le Fanu is not someone I would… →

  • Tyger, Tyger

    So, I’m not one who is great on poetry – I’ll be the first to admit that. This was the first of Blake that I have read and I didn’t care much for it. I found the style to be rather dull – a lot of rhyming; the kind of assignments one might get in… →

  • The Dare

    I’m usually not a big fan of novellas because there is just not enough room in there for story/character development. But this one was by John Boyne, so I just had to had it. (If I could make one little note on the enormously big printed price on the cover. The bookshops in The Netherlands… →