I remember the strangeness of my first encounter with Death in Venice. I had taken it off the shelf because it was a very slim volume. I was feeling somewhat fatigued, intellectually, and wanted something I could swallow whole in an afternoon. Something light and diverting. Death in Venice was the wrong choice entirely. Death in Venice only looks like a slim volume, but in reality it is as vast... Read more

This is a novel Thomas Mann began when a young man and finished when an old man. He said he didn’t have the strength needed to keep up the tone of the novel when he was young. When you read this strange, delightful, exciting novel you’ll know what he meant. Felix Krull, the hero/villain, is exuberant and fantastical and irrepressible. To think up such a character requires youth R... Read more