London

The house in Gordon Square where Virginia Woolf lived.

"Paul's Case" — Third Time

The "case" in the short story by Willa Cather, which we read last year, is both a legal and a medical one: respectively of embezzlement and of "temperament". Christopher Benfey, reviewing a new biography of a gilded-age prototype of Bernie Madoff, suggests a third "case" … of implicit social protest, of paupers tricking their way into the gilded cage of robber barons. (Thanks to John for this notice.)

Gide

Finished "The Counterfeiters" and loved it.  I noticed this time that Dmitri Karamazov was mentioned at least twice so now I'm doing a reread of "The Brothers K..." (all 913 pages).

the clock ticking

Counterfeiters – Character Network

We have five weeks until our discussion of André Gide's The Counterfeiters (Nov. 7). Word is out not to delay beginning this novel till the last week, and some, who already have begun, are expressing a need for a chart like the above (kindly passed on to us by Keith).

The Gay Nabokov

In preparation for the meeting on Wednesday, the original article by Lev Grossman in Salon on Sergey Nabokov -- that sparked Paul Russell's imagination -- is extremely worthwhile reading. It mentions in the text a photograph taken of the family when it was in Yalta in 1917, but doesn't include it in the article. It seems to be the only photograph of Sergey. (Click above for a larger image.)

"Merging Fiction and Fact"

BookMen are deep, I trust, in their reading of Paul Russell's The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov. After finishing (though at any time really — there are no "spoilers" for this book), they may be interested to read Kat Long's interview on the Lambda Literary Review website. Also worthwhile is Terri Salomon's review of this book there. Unreal Life has oddly had more blurbs (even without doubling) than reviews (at least that I've been able to locate).