Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
1913
1913: The Year before the Storm | Florian Illies
9 posts | 10 read
A witty yet moving narrative worked up from sketched biographical fragments, 1913 is an intimate vision of a world that is about to change forever. The stuffy conventions of the nineteenth century are receding into the past, and 1913 heralds a new age of unlimited possibility. Kafka falls in love; Louis Armstrong learns to play the trumpet; a young seamstress called Coco Chanel opens her first boutique; Charlie Chaplin signs his first movie contract; and new drugs like cocaine usher in an age of decadence. Yet everywhere there is the premonition of ruin - the number 13 is omnipresent, and in London, Paris and Vienna, artists take the omen and act as if there were no tomorrow. In a Munich hotel lobby, Rilke and Freud discuss beauty and transience; Proust sets out in search of lost time; and while Stravinsky celebrates the Rite of Spring with industrial cacophony, an Austrian postcard painter by the name of Adolf Hitler sells his conventional cityscapes.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
review
Sarah83
post image
Mehso-so

I hoped so much, but it wasn't the right book for me. The idea of reflecting the year before the war was great, but the book was more or less boring.

blurb
Sarah83
post image

After I had some little accidents this week, my shoulder is aching badly. Well this means some extra reading time. 😍

TheSpineView Love extra reading time but that is a hard way to get it! 🤣 Seriously, hope you are better soon! 5y
AmyG Oh no. Feel better! 5y
LiteraryinPA Ouch! Hope you feel more comfortable soon! 5y
See All 11 Comments
BookNAround Hope your shoulder feels better soon but yay for more reading time. 5y
erzascarletbookgasm Hope the pain goes away soon. 5y
cobwebmoth Hope your shoulder feels better soon! 5y
MemoirsForMe Oh my! Feel better soon. 🤗❤️ 5y
ValerieAndBooks I hope you are feeling better soon 💖 5y
rubyslippersreads Hope you‘re feeling better by now. 😘 5y
BiblioLitten How are you feeling now?💕 5y
Andrew65 Get better soon. 😊👍 5y
71 likes11 comments
review
ssravp
post image
Panpan

I didn‘t like this at all, and it seems I‘m in the minority in that. Oh well.

blurb
Vansa
post image

I'm doing my @bookriot #riotgrams October challenge all put of order, work's keeping me very busy!Contribution 11 #underratedreads-a book we picked up at Lisbon, because it was one of the few English books at #LerDevagar and is now one of my favourite books. A spellbinding account of a year that's pretty much laid the foundations for the 20th Century as we know it.

5 likes1 stack add
review
Roebbe
post image
Pickpick

Also just finished this brilliant book which gives an overview over the year 1913. I can't even imagine how much source material the author had to sort through how many dates he had to bring into order to create this dense picture of a year so full of creative, influential or misunderstood people. I wish he would pick another year and write another book. :)

Roebbe Oh, and this is definitely a 5/5✨ book. 7y
3 likes1 comment
blurb
Sarah83
post image

@Izai.Amorim

Knowing him writing funny literature this one is more serious. He shows up the year before WWI and describes what happened in just one summer. This year changed the history of the whole world forever.

Post 3 of 6

blurb
Roebbe
post image

My other current read. Love this one, it is witty and interesting and contains so much information about that year. So much happened and so many different people interacted and influenced each other. :)
I am trying to make this last by (almost) only reading it on the tram or train. The form is perfect for that. :)