Simon During
@simoncd.bsky.social
Bookish married English professor, living between Brisbane and Berlin. Interested in way too much, reads indiscriminately, and, cant seem to help myself, has opinions on pretty much everything.
The view from our Berlin apt just now.
March 3, 2025 at 5:15 PM
The view from our Berlin apt just now.
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories: two novels (this ed 1945). This is one of the few volumes I long lusted for before I acquired it. It is such a handsome thing. Then I came across it quite by chance in Balfour Books, one of Toronto’s best used bookstores, while attending a conference there.
March 3, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories: two novels (this ed 1945). This is one of the few volumes I long lusted for before I acquired it. It is such a handsome thing. Then I came across it quite by chance in Balfour Books, one of Toronto’s best used bookstores, while attending a conference there.
Didier Eribon, Retour a Reims (1980). A famous (Bourdieuean) reflection on/theorization of the author’s life (a provincial queer working class lad’s rise up the academic ladder into the petit bourgeoisie) as triggered by a trip back to his home town upon his dad’s death. Interesting, very French.
February 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Didier Eribon, Retour a Reims (1980). A famous (Bourdieuean) reflection on/theorization of the author’s life (a provincial queer working class lad’s rise up the academic ladder into the petit bourgeoisie) as triggered by a trip back to his home town upon his dad’s death. Interesting, very French.
The last dated Gertrud Kauders drawing we have. So cool!
February 20, 2025 at 1:49 PM
The last dated Gertrud Kauders drawing we have. So cool!
C.P. Snow, Death under Sail (1932). Nice cover, lousy book. What a creep was C.P. Snow!
February 20, 2025 at 12:29 PM
C.P. Snow, Death under Sail (1932). Nice cover, lousy book. What a creep was C.P. Snow!
Italo Calvino, Our Ancestors. I have vivid memories of reading this book, astonished, on the London Northern Line in the days I worked in advertising in Hyde Park and lived on Parliament Hill. “Baron in the Trees” in particular really got to me, and it remains an ur-text.
February 17, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Italo Calvino, Our Ancestors. I have vivid memories of reading this book, astonished, on the London Northern Line in the days I worked in advertising in Hyde Park and lived on Parliament Hill. “Baron in the Trees” in particular really got to me, and it remains an ur-text.
My Secret Life (1966). The famous (or just once famous?) Victorian male hetero porn book which the late great Steven Marcus edited and brought back into circulation, upon which I think it became something of a bestseller. One of the more, how to put it?, perverse pathways into 19thc England.
February 15, 2025 at 8:19 AM
My Secret Life (1966). The famous (or just once famous?) Victorian male hetero porn book which the late great Steven Marcus edited and brought back into circulation, upon which I think it became something of a bestseller. One of the more, how to put it?, perverse pathways into 19thc England.
A Gertrud Kauders work on paper
February 15, 2025 at 8:17 AM
A Gertrud Kauders work on paper
BCharles Jackson, The Lost Weekend (1944) I’ve vague memories of reading this bestseller in my adolescence and think I saw the movie too. If my memory is sound, the dustjacket here isn’t very appropriate. But pb publishers of the period weren’t concerned with the fit between the jacket and the work
February 6, 2025 at 4:10 PM
BCharles Jackson, The Lost Weekend (1944) I’ve vague memories of reading this bestseller in my adolescence and think I saw the movie too. If my memory is sound, the dustjacket here isn’t very appropriate. But pb publishers of the period weren’t concerned with the fit between the jacket and the work
Kirsty Bell, The Undercurrents. I enjoyed this as most people interested in Berlin will. An American art-historian’s divorce lands her with a largish building beside the Landwehr canal and she becomes obsessed by its past. Fascinating.
January 31, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Kirsty Bell, The Undercurrents. I enjoyed this as most people interested in Berlin will. An American art-historian’s divorce lands her with a largish building beside the Landwehr canal and she becomes obsessed by its past. Fascinating.
Mary McCarthy, The Group Everyone read this when I was young. Before feminism, before the pill, before the ‘career woman’, it’s about a bunch of Vasser girls out of college. It’s more about class thansex and gender, even if its historical role was to intensify women’s awareness of how gender works.
January 27, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Mary McCarthy, The Group Everyone read this when I was young. Before feminism, before the pill, before the ‘career woman’, it’s about a bunch of Vasser girls out of college. It’s more about class thansex and gender, even if its historical role was to intensify women’s awareness of how gender works.
A Gertrud Kauders self-portrait just in from the framers
January 26, 2025 at 5:35 AM
A Gertrud Kauders self-portrait just in from the framers
Unification anyone?
January 18, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Unification anyone?
Gertrud flowers in oil
January 16, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Gertrud flowers in oil
Henry James, The Awkward Age (1899). First US edition of one of James’s finest novels. Why doesn’t Vanderbank want to marry Nanda? If you know, tell us please.
December 29, 2024 at 3:28 AM
Henry James, The Awkward Age (1899). First US edition of one of James’s finest novels. Why doesn’t Vanderbank want to marry Nanda? If you know, tell us please.
From the ‘Flowers of Evil’ show currently at the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. Very enjoyable.
December 28, 2024 at 7:07 AM
From the ‘Flowers of Evil’ show currently at the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. Very enjoyable.
A nice oil Gertrud Kauders self portrait as a Xmas pleasure.
December 27, 2024 at 5:29 PM
A nice oil Gertrud Kauders self portrait as a Xmas pleasure.
Ronald Firbank, Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1925). These Firbank firsts are very nice objects, and have their cult. Firbank is of course one of the true pioneers of the modernist novel, a giant of twentieth-century fiction, continuing neglect of whom is unfathomable to me.
December 25, 2024 at 6:18 AM
Ronald Firbank, Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1925). These Firbank firsts are very nice objects, and have their cult. Firbank is of course one of the true pioneers of the modernist novel, a giant of twentieth-century fiction, continuing neglect of whom is unfathomable to me.
Gertrud Kauders 24: My great aunt Gertrud Kauders’ works were concealed behind the walls of a Prague house before the Nazis murdered her, were forgotten and found by chance in 2018. Almost 700 works, her whole studio. Her maid Annerle, often painted.
December 24, 2024 at 9:22 AM
Gertrud Kauders 24: My great aunt Gertrud Kauders’ works were concealed behind the walls of a Prague house before the Nazis murdered her, were forgotten and found by chance in 2018. Almost 700 works, her whole studio. Her maid Annerle, often painted.
Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work (1924). A piece of literary history this. A first edition, put together by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, of Theodora Bosanquet’s wonderful account of being James’s “amanuensis” to use her own word, an account whose style mimics James’s own.
December 23, 2024 at 5:01 AM
Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work (1924). A piece of literary history this. A first edition, put together by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, of Theodora Bosanquet’s wonderful account of being James’s “amanuensis” to use her own word, an account whose style mimics James’s own.
Annie Ernaux, The Years. Ernaux is older than me, French, a woman, but her formal inventions (partly fusing, partly alternating 1st & 3rd person pronouns) make her story mine too. And she narrates from a neutral pov without the moralisms that would cripple an American attempt to do likewise. Great!
December 22, 2024 at 8:39 AM
Annie Ernaux, The Years. Ernaux is older than me, French, a woman, but her formal inventions (partly fusing, partly alternating 1st & 3rd person pronouns) make her story mine too. And she narrates from a neutral pov without the moralisms that would cripple an American attempt to do likewise. Great!
Jean Racine, Berenice and Bajazet (trans Alan Hollinghurst) Hollinghurst’s translation works for me: he doesn’t try to rime (which he knows cant work in English) but he does try to keep the couplets in place. I have long wanted to get closer to Racine, he is so central to European literary history.
December 19, 2024 at 7:18 AM
Jean Racine, Berenice and Bajazet (trans Alan Hollinghurst) Hollinghurst’s translation works for me: he doesn’t try to rime (which he knows cant work in English) but he does try to keep the couplets in place. I have long wanted to get closer to Racine, he is so central to European literary history.
Clark Smith, The case of torches (this ed 1963). This one for the cover design, wonderful isn’t it? Havent actually read the novel and almost certainly wont either.
December 18, 2024 at 12:35 PM
Clark Smith, The case of torches (this ed 1963). This one for the cover design, wonderful isn’t it? Havent actually read the novel and almost certainly wont either.
Gertrud Kauders 23: My great aunt Gertrud Kauders’ works were concealed behind the walls of a Prague house before the Nazis murdered her, were forgotten and found by chance in 2018. Almost 700 works, her whole studio. A gorgeous watercolour this.
December 17, 2024 at 7:53 AM
Gertrud Kauders 23: My great aunt Gertrud Kauders’ works were concealed behind the walls of a Prague house before the Nazis murdered her, were forgotten and found by chance in 2018. Almost 700 works, her whole studio. A gorgeous watercolour this.