Wednesday, February 09, 2005
(1:25 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Wednesday Book Recommendation
Franz Kafka, The SonsI had already read the three stories ("The Judgment," "The Stoker," and "The Metamorphosis") several times when I picked up this volume, but it does include a text that I was unable to find quickly in another English edition: the "Letter to his Father." That text is strange and fascinating on many levels. First, there's the very fact that I am reading it, although his father seems like the kind of guy who would have left this 100-page (hand-written; only 40 in this edition) legal brief aside, just as he did Kafka's first short story collection. Combined with the stories in this volume, which Kafka failed to have published as a unit during his lifetime, and with an introduction that raises interesting questions without being intrusive, this is a much more cohesive and revealing introduction to Kafka than a book of random "collected short stories."
And Amazon informs me that you can now preorder your copy of the next Harry Potter book, at a 40% savings:
If you click this link and then order, Amazon will give me a cut. If you were going to buy the new Harry Potter anyway, it'd be a nice gesture toward supporting your local poor unemployed graduate student, so put-upon by parking tickets.
