The New Republic has published a long review of three novels by Georges Simenon. The thesis is that they are “are superb and polished works of art masquerading as pulp fiction.” Simenon wrote more than 400 novels, under his own name and various pseudonyms.
One of them, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, was published [...]

After several months of ‘phony war’, the worst-kept secret in British politics was finally revealed today - the next UK General Election will take place on May 5th, just four weeks away.
I’ll try and find the time to post on Fistful during the campaign if none of my colleagues manage it, but I’m also posting [...]

I don’t know enough aboutAustrian politics to comment much on this, but I thought Fistful readers would be interested to know that Joerg Haider and several others have left the Freedom Party to establish a new party, the Alliance for Austria’s Future.

Once upon a time, in a gentler age, the International Herald Tribune published its late sports editor Dick Roraback’s ode to baseball’s opening day each year.
Under the fold, a little bit of nostalgia, The Crack of the Bat:

Read more… or Read more right [...]

With sagans of words being written and broadcast about the death of John Paul II, there’s not too much to add. So here’s just a little.
Was he the last European Pope?
Brazil has 137.5 million Catholics, Mexico 89 million, the Philippines 61 million and the United States 58 million. The Europe appears with 55 million in [...]

I’m not sure what possessed the editors of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung to add Somerset Maugham’s The Magician to their list of 50 great novels of the twentieth century. In the preface to the edition that I have, the author admits that when it was republished, he had not read the book in nearly fifty years. [...]

As Der Spiegel’s Matthias Mattussek writes -
“Looking back, there will be disagreement whether Woytila was a pope of inclusion or exclusion. [...] He was conservative, he was obstinate, he was a provacation. He said, kneel down, pray a rosary. But millions of people on all continents have been captured … by this pope’s fight, [...]

Our blogroll got a major update for the first time in a good while, which might be a good occasion to to ask if anyone knows any blogs you think belong on our blogroll.

A week ago, A Fistful of Euros were all captured by the entity known only as MODOK and held captive on the dark side of the moon. Only now have we managed to flee, and can resume blogging for truth, justice and the European way.

You might have noticed that we haven’t updated AFOE for a week, and that the posting frequency dropped considerably in the last weeks. I’m sad to say that we’re not coming back; this will be the last update to A Fistful of Euros. The archives and links will be maintained.
The reason isn’t any great falling [...]