The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon

A suicide, but why?

Originally published in 1931 under the French title of Le Pendu du Saint-Pholien, this is the fourth book in George Simenon’s series of Inspector Maigret mystery novels. In English translation, this book has been published as The Crime of Inspector Maigret, Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets, and The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien. The title of the novel is a bit of a spoiler, so it’s best not explained.

Maigret has been in Brussels, conferring with the police there about a case. While patronizing a café in that city, Maigret spots a shabby, destitute-looking man handling a sizeable wad of cash. Maigret estimates the stack of bills to be at least 30,000 Belgian francs, which the suspicious character stuffs into an envelope that he addresses to a Paris address. Assuming this man is engaged in some form of thievery, Maigret decides to follow the guy, eventually tailing him to the train station. With apparently nothing else to do, Maigret follows his suspect on board a train traveling through Amsterdam to Bremen, Germany. There, the sleazy-looking fellow engages a hotel room, and Maigret takes the adjoining room. Spying on his suspect through the keyhole, Maigret watches as the man takes out a gun and, before Maigret can intervene, commits suicide.

After an examination of this mystery man’s belongings, Maigret determines that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Wondering where the money came from and why this man would so suddenly decide to blow his brains out, Maigret decides to investigate the suicide victim’s past. He immediately encounters an obstacle, however, when he discovers that this man, supposedly named Louis Jeunet, is traveling with a fake passport under an assumed name. The ensuing investigation into the dead man’s identity leads Maigret on a search stretching from Bremen to Paris, Rheims, and Liège.

This mystery makes for an intriguing puzzle that grips the reader’s curiosity and keeps one engaged throughout, but the story does have its problems. As happens in quite a few of these Maigret novels, the resolution doesn’t rely so much on Maigret’s detective work but rather on the suspects’ arbitrary decision to just spill their guts to him, as they do for roughly the final four chapters of this book. Simenon was an expert at constructing his crime novels around realistic and moving human stories, but the result is that sometimes the criminals’ and victims’ back stories take precedence over the actual mystery itself, as is the case here. The opening premise of the novel, with Maigret just following some guy on a whim, feels like a rather lazy, contrived means of setting up the revelations of alias Louis Jeunet’s past, which is really where Simenon directs most of his effort. Another element in this novel that I found a bit disturbing is that Maigret is actually responsible for the death of an innocent person, and he knows it, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much.

Like most Maigret novels, once I picked this book up I didn’t want to put it down. Simenon’s prose is brisk and riveting. On the other hand, this is one where I felt like I had to suspend disbelief at times, and when I got to the end, I was left with a feeling of hmmm . . . that was odd. It defies expectations, and not always in a good way.

The Incredible Hulk Epic Collection, Volume 4: In the Hands of Hydra by Roy Thomas, Herb Trimpe, et al.

Boilerplate stories with pretty good art

The Epic Collection is Marvel’s line of trade paperbacks that reprint their comics from bygone eras, giving today’s readers a chance to experience the early runs of many of Marvel’s best-known superheroes from the 1960s and ‘70s. Nowadays, these comics are known as Marvel Volume 1, before they started renumbering all their titles with new #1s. The Incredible Hulk Epic Collection, Volume 4, reprints issues 118 to 137 from the Incredible Hulk title. These issues were originally published from August 1969 to March 1971. As is typical of the Epic Collection paperbacks, the comics are reprinted in color and brightly reproduced on matte-coated paper. The quality of the reproductions in this volume is very good.

Although this volume is subtitled In the Hands of Hydra, Hydra only appears for an issue or two. There weren’t a lot of multi-issue story arcs back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Rarely did a story last longer than two issues. In the first few issues of this Hulk run, Stan Lee has a hand in the stories, but he soon hands off the writing duties to Roy Thomas, who would succeed Stan Lee a few years later as Marvel’s editor in chief. This was the era of the classic Hulk, the brutish beast who frequently proclaimed “Hulk smash!” and frequently uttered variations on “Why can’t puny humans leave Hulk alone?” As in the Bill Bixby TV series, this Hulk never manages to explicitly kill anyone. There was a narrowly prescribed limit to what could be done with this character, and the same basic story involving Hulk, Betty, and Thunderbolt Ross is repeated over and over again issue after issue, the only variation being the adversary on the receiving end of Hulk’s blows. In this volume, the Abomination, Maximus, Kang, the Leader, Tyrannus, and the Absorbing Man all show up for an issue or two. The Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Iron Man each make an appearance. Two stories are devoted to a forgotten Man-Thing prototype named the Glob.

With a few exceptions, the art is handled by Herb Trimpe. Trimpe was a big name at Marvel during this era, primarily for his work on the Hulk. His art, however, isn’t nearly as good as contemporaries like Neal Adams, John Romita Sr., or the Buscema brothers. Trimpe tends to draw stocky, cartoony-looking characters with marshmallow shaped heads. The first few issues in this volume are not very well-drawn at all. In one panel, Trimpe adds an extra knuckle to a finger. Halfway through the volume, however, it’s as if someone at Marvel told Trimpe, “You should imitate Jack Kirby’s style,” and his art improves considerably from there. The best looking issues in this book are the few that were inked by John Severin, who I’m guessing did more than just ink, because he brings a more detailed, expressive style that calls to mind Hal Foster’s work on Prince Valiant. This brief Severin run includes issue #133, a comic I owned in my youth and lovingly reread and copied until it pretty much disintegrated. In this exciting issue, Hulk fights the forces of Draxon, the dictator of Morvania, a one-story villain who was never heard from again.

This volume also includes a reprint of Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (September 1968), featuring a World War I aviator hero called the Phantom Eagle. I guess this story is included because he’s a Trimpe creation, but it doesn’t really belong here, even if the character does make a supporting appearance in one of the Hulk issues. Overall, the art in this book is good, the writing is not so good, and neither is really great. If you like old Silver and Bronze Age Marvel Comics, as I do, then this book is a satisfactory nostalgia trip, but it once again proves that the contents of the Epic Collection volumes aren’t always epic in quality.

Star Trek Movie Memories by William Shatner and Chris Kreski

The conflicts and compromises behind the film franchise

Star Trek Movie Memories was published in 1994, just after actor William Shatner ended his career as Captain Kirk in the Star Trek franchise. This book is the sequel to Star Trek Memories, published the preceding year, in which Shatner recounts the making of the original Star Trek television series. In Star Trek Movie Memories, Shatner provides his behind-the-scenes perspective on the making of the six Star Trek feature films featuring the original cast, as well as the Star Trek: Generations film, in which he made his final appearance as Kirk along side The Next Generation cast. Both books were cowritten by Shatner and Chris Kreski, a former television writer.

Much like the volume that preceded it, Star Trek Movie Memories is not so much a collection of personal anecdotes of Shatner and his costars, but rather a production history of these seven Star Trek motion pictures. In addition to Shatner’s recollections, Shatner and/or Kreski interviewed many of the cast and crew to get their side of the story. Leonard Nimoy’s voice is once again quite prominent in this volume. In many ways, Nimoy had a more active creative role than Shatner in the building of the film franchise, and Shatner gives his old friend credit where it is due.

When comparing the two Memories books sheerly on the basis of subject matter, the making of movies in the 1980s is not nearly as interesting as the making of a groundbreaking sci-fi television series in the 1960s. Much of the text in this Movie Memories volume has to do with battles over script changes, contract negotiations of the actors and writers, and meddling by Paramount studio executives. This second book, however, does include more personal reflections from Shatner, and it reads more like it was written in Shatner’s voice. There is a touching chapter in which he describes the hard times in his career between the end of the television series and the beginning of the movie franchise. He also talks about his marital problems and his relationship with his daughters. Shatner closes the book with a candid examination of his coming to terms with the bittersweet feelings engendered by the death of Kirk and the end of his involvement with Star Trek.

It still feels, however, like Shatner is holding back a bit for diplomacy’s sake, particularly in regards to his castmates. It’s common knowledge that there has been some bad blood between the fictional captain and his crew over the years, but Shatner has a tendency to focus on the bright and sunny side of their relationships. He mentions at one point, for example, that James Doohan and Walter Koenig held a grudge against him, which made their joint participation in Generations difficult, but he never reveals the history behind that animosity. No longer does Shatner hold back on Gene Roddenberry, however, who was duly credited in the first book for his creation of Star Trek but is portrayed as the nemesis of the Star Trek franchise throughout this second book.

Reading Shatner’s first Star Trek Memories book made me want to go back and watch the original television series. Likewise, Star Trek Movie Memories inspired me to binge-watch the six original-cast motion pictures. Like a good DVD commentary, this book proved to be a valuable companion volume to the film series. Star Trek Movie Memories is not always as exciting or as forthright as the reader might hope, but like its predecessor it is a very informative book and a welcome trip down memory lane for even casual Star Trek fans. You don’t have to be a Trekkie zealot to enjoy it.  

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

A chore to get through

As an avid reader of literature both old and new, I like to give authors who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature a try (the prose writers at least; not so much the poets). I don’t think the Nobel laureates are necessarily the greatest writers who ever lived, but when I sample from that list of authors I can be reasonably sure that I’m going to get a good read, and I also get exposed to the literature and history of many different nations and cultures. Sometimes, however, the strategy doesn’t pay off, and I come across a laureate whose work I just don’t get or enjoy. Such is my first experience with German author Thomas Mann, winner of the 1929 Nobel.

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories is a collection of Mann’s short fiction in English translation, first published in the U.S. in 1930. The title selection, “Death in Venice,” is probably Mann’s best known short story. In this 1911 work, an aging writer decides he needs a break from his routine, so he takes a vacation and ends up in Venice. There he becomes obsessed with a “beautiful” young Polish boy who is staying in his hotel. The writer proceeds to stalk this prepubescent boy, which makes for a very creepy read. At the same time, however, the creepiness is the only interesting aspect in an otherwise boring story. Mann was gay (though married with children), and it is admirable that he bravely introduced gay themes into his work. Pedophilia, on the other hand, is met with zero tolerance these days, so that unapologetic aspect of the story pretty much negates any of its positive qualities. Likewise, a story about an incestuous romance (“The Blood of the Walsungs”) is also difficult to engage with or defend.

The other stories in the book are not as offensive but equally as dull, if not more so. Although this is a collection of short stories, most of them are just shy of being long enough to be designated novellas. It’s hard to justify such lengthiness when these stories are comprised of so much description and so little plot. In just about every case, the first half of the story could be simply deleted, and it wouldn’t affect the end result much, other than to make each story less of a chore to slog through. The entry entitled “A Man and His Dog,” is simply that: a man describing his dog, ad nauseam. I don’t know if it’s fiction or nonfiction, but either way it is very tedious and pointless. Likewise, “Disorder and Early Sorrow” is a description of a party where almost nothing happens. The story may include social commentary, but it’s not enough to keep you awake.

There are a few selections here in which the characters aren’t totally off-putting, and Mann does offer a shoestring plot to weave amongst all the heaps of description. “Tristan,” “Tonio Kröger,” and “Felix Krull” are examples of stories that start out promising enough. Vague and inconclusive endings, however, pretty much render any satisfaction null and void. It’s almost as if Mann wants to disappoint readers. I guess this is what artsy types would call “challenging the reader,” but it’s just annoyingly pretentious. “Felix Krull,” in which a criminal recounts his gradual moral degradation, is the best entry in the collection, but that’s not saying much.

When I picked up this book, I was expecting something along the lines of Hermann Hesse, a German writer who was Mann’s contemporary and at least his acquaintance. Hesse, however, writes works that engage and inspire the reader, while Mann seems to do his best here to try readers’ patience and alienate them. For all I know, Mann may be one of the greatest novelists of all time, but I can’t say much for his short stories. There is nothing in this collection that makes me want to delve into one of his longer works like Buddenbrooks or The Magic Mountain.

Stories in this collection

Death in Venice

Tonio Kröger

Mario and the Magician

Disorder and Early Sorrow

A Man and His Dog

Blood of the Walsungs

Tristan

Felix Krull

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester

Too much hero worship and too many tangential digressions

The geologist William Smith is hardly a household name, but then again, how many geologists are? Perhaps Smith is more renowned in his native England, but Americans who aren’t specialists in this field are unlikely to have heard of Smith before coming upon Simon Winchester’s 2001 biography, The Map That Changed the World. Smith’s claim to scientific fame is that he discovered that rocks are arranged in strata, formed in different geological eras, and each strata can be identified by the fossils it contains. This was a very controversial idea at the time, when most people, scientists included, believed that God created the Earth a few thousands, not a few billion, years ago. Smith, also a skilled surveyor, was able, over the course of almost two decades, to single-handedly map the distribution of geological strata over the entirety of England, Scotland, and Wales. Because of good old-fashioned British classism, Smith was unfairly denied the credit he deserved for his discoveries. After reading Winchester’s book, one might also say he hasn’t gotten the biography he deserves either.

The most bothersome aspect of Winchester’s book is his unrelenting hero worship of Smith. There’s no attempt made for even the semblance of objectivity. First of all, “Changed the World” is a bit of an overstatement, isn’t it? Winchester makes it sound like prior to Smith’s map, everyone believed that the Earth was 6,000 years old. Later in the book, he does let it slip that maybe a few other scientists had the same idea. In a book that’s largely about fossils, Winchester doesn’t even mention Georges Cuvier, the Frenchman often credited as the “founding father of paleontology.” Winchester asserts that Darwin would never have formulated his theory of evolution were it not for the earlier pioneering work of Smith. That may be true, but the same could be said for at least a hundred other scientists. That’s what scientists do. They build upon the foundation of knowledge established by those before them. Smith did the same thing, even though Winchester tries to convince you that he was a savant who conducted research and experienced scientific revelations in a vacuum.

I don’t mean to make less of Smith’s discoveries and accomplishments; I only mean to make less of Winchester’s writing about them. Winchester repeatedly uses the words “genius” and “triumph” far too often throughout the book. Just tell us what the guy did, and let the reader be the judge of whether he’s a genius or not. The fact is, Smith only seems to appear sporadically in the book, while Winchester goes off on way too many extended asides: the history of prehistoric life, the history of coal, the history of canal building, the history of Bath as a tourist destination, Winchester’s own travels in the region, etc. Smith, meanwhile, feels like a forgotten guest in his own biography. Winchester also enjoys rattling off the names of myriad English towns and villages as if the reader grew up in this neighborhood and is expected to be intimately familiar with the area. Instead of a New York Times Bestselling scientific biography, the result often reads like a book aimed at a regional audience about a hometown boy who made good.

I read a lot of science biographies such as this. Of those written for a popular audience, the best ones grab your attention with an exciting story of the adventure of discovery. In that regard, The Map That Changed the World is a little on the boring side, mostly due to Winchester’s numerous digressions. Did I learn a thing or two about geology? Yes. Did I learn as much about Smith as I expected? No, not really. If there’s a more academic biography of Smith out there, it might be worth reading, but Winchester’s book wouldn’t inspire me to want to seek one out.

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Old Books by (Mostly) Dead Nobel Laureates 2024

Congratulations to Han Kang!

Han Kang, South Korean author of poetry and prose, has been announced as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. Every year at this time, Old Books by Dead Guys presents the ever-growing cumulative list of works by Nobel laureates that have been reviewed at this blog. Though previously unfamiliar with Han Kang, we have been busy consuming the works of other Nobel-winning writers over the past 12 months. New authors added to the list this year are Russia’s Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Italy’s Luigi Pirandello, Mexico’s Octavio Paz, Ireland’s Samuel Beckett, England’s William Golding, and France’s Patrick Modiano. Also, I’ve added new works by Mario Vargas Llosa, Albert Camus, Eugene O’Neill, Mikhail Sholokhov, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont. Check out the authors below and click on the titles to read the complete reviews.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Arne: A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life (1859) - 3 stars
• A Happy Boy (1860) - 4.5 stars
• “The Father” (1860) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• “The Railroad and the Churchyard” (1882) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• Absolom’s Hair (English edition, 1908) - 3 stars

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• In Vain (1876) - 2.5 stars
• “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” (1881) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898) - 4.5 stars
• Without Dogma (1891) - 4 stars
• “Bartek the Conqueror” (1882) in Tales by Polish Authors (1915) - 5 stars
• With Fire and Sword (1884) - 4 stars
• The Deluge (1886) - 5 stars
• Pan Michael (1888) - 5 stars
• Lillian Morris and Other Stories (1894) - 4 stars
• Quo Vadis (1895) - 4.5 stars
• Children of the Soil (1895) - 1 star
• Hania (1897) - 2.5 stars
• Sielanka: An Idyll (1898) - 4 stars
• So Runs the World (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories (1904) - 3.5 stars
• On the Field of Glory (1906) - 3 stars
• In Desert and Wilderness (1911) - 2.5 stars

Rudyard Kipling (1907 Nobel) United Kingdom (born in India) 🇬🇧

• “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888) in Stories by English Authors: The Orient (1896) - 2 stars
• “The Courting of Dinah Shadd” (1890) in International Short Stories: English (1910) - 1 star
• Kim (1901) - 2 stars

Selma Lagerlöf (1909 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• The Treasure (1903) - 5 stars

Paul von Heyse (1910 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• “The Fury” (1853) in Stories by Foreign Authors: German I (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Children of the World (1873) - 4.5 stars

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Nobel) Belgium 🇧🇪

• “The Massacre of the Innocents” (1886) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898) - 5 stars
• Wisdom and Destiny (1898) - 2.5 stars
• Death (1911) - 4.5 stars

Gerhart Hauptmann (1912 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• Atlantis (1912) - 2.5 stars

Rabindranath Tagore (1913 Nobel) India 🇮🇳

• Mashi and Other Stories (1918) - 3.5 stars

Romain Rolland (1915 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• Jean-Christophe, Volume 1: Dawn, Morning, Youth, Revolt (1911) - 4.5 stars
• Jean-Christophe, Volume 2: The Marketplace, Antoinette, The House ( 1911) - 3 stars
• Jean-Christophe, Volume 3: Love and Friendship, The Burning Bush, The New Dawn (1912) - 2.5 stars
• Pierre and Luce (1920) - 4 stars

Verner von Heidenstam (1916 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• The Soothsayer (1919) - 2.5 stars
• The Birth of God (1920) - 2 stars

Henrik Pontoppidan (1917 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

• Emmanuel, or Children of the Soil (English edition, 1896) - 4.5 stars

Carl Spitteler (1919 Nobel) Switzerland 🇨🇭

• Two Little Misogynists (1907) - 3 stars

Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Hunger (1890) - 3.5 stars
• Shallow Soil (1893) - 4.5 stars
• Pan (1894) - 4 stars
• Victoria (1898) - 4 stars
• Under the Autumn Star (1906) - 4 stars
• A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings (1909) - 4 stars
• Look Back on Happiness (1912) - 2.5 stars
• Growth of the Soil (1917) - 5 stars

Anatole France (1921 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881) - 5 stars
• “The Juggler of Notre Dame” (1892) in Stories by Foreign Authors: French I (1898) - 4 stars
• The Gods Are Athirst (1912) - 3 stars

Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• The Comedienne (1896) - 3 stars
• The Promised Land (1899) - 4 stars
• “In the Old Town at Lodz” (1899) in Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse - 4.5 stars
• The Peasants (1904-1909) - 5 stars
• “The Trial” in More Tales by Polish Authors (1916) - 4.5 stars
• “A Polish Scene” in Selected Polish Tales (1921) - 3 stars
• “Death” in Selected Polish Tales (1921) - 2 stars

George Benard Shaw (1925 Nobel) Ireland 🇮🇪

• “The Miraculous Revenge” in Little Blue Book No. 215 (ca. 1923) - 1.5 stars

Henri Bergson (1927 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903) - 2 stars

Sigrid Undset (1928 Nobel) Norway 🇳🇴

• Jenny (1911) - 2.5 stars

Sinclair Lewis (1930 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• Free Air (1919) - 2.5 stars
• Main Street (1920) - 3 stars
• Babbitt (1922) - 4.5 stars
• It Can’t Happen Here (1935) - 3.5 stars

John Galsworthy (1932 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧

• The Man of Property (1906) - 3 stars
• “Buttercup Night” (1914) in Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories (1918) - 4 stars

Ivan Bunin (1933 Nobel) France (born in Russia) 🇫🇷 🇷🇺

• The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories (1922) - 4.5 stars

Luigi Pirandello (1934 Nobel) Italy 🇮🇹

• Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) - 2 stars

Eugene O’Neill (1936 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• Bread and Butter (1914) - 2 stars
• Servitude (1914) - 2 stars
• “Tomorrow” (1917) - 4 stars
• The Straw (1919) - 2 stars
• Beyond the Horizon (1920) - 3.5 stars
• Gold (1920) - 3 stars
• Anna Christie (1921) - 4.5 stars
• Diff’rent (1921) - 3.5 stars
• The First Man (1922) - 3 stars
• The Hairy Ape (1922) - 4 stars
• Welded (1924) - 1 star
• All God’s Chillun Got Wings (1924) - 2.5 stars
• Desire Under the Elms (1924) - 3 stars
• The Fountain (1926) - 3.5 stars
• Marco Millions (1927) - 2.5 stars
• The One-Act Plays of Eugene O’Neill (1914–1941) - 3 stars

Pearl S. Buck (1938 Nobel) United States of America (raised in China) 🇺🇸

• East Wind, West Wind (1930) - 3 stars
• The Good Earth (1931) - 5 stars
• Sons (1933) - 4 stars
• A House Divided (1935)- 4.5 stars
• This Proud Heart (1938) - 2 stars
• Other Gods (1940) - 3 stars
• Dragon Seed (1942) - 4 stars
• The Promise (1943) - 4 stars
• China Flight (1943) - 3.5 stars
• The Townsman (1945) - 2 stars
• Peony (1948) - 4 stars
• Command the Morning (1959) - 4.5 stars
• The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (1963) - 3 stars
• Death in the Castle (1965) - 2 stars

Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939 Nobel) Finland 🇫🇮

• People in the Summer Night (1934) - 4 stars

Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944 Nobel) Denmark 🇩🇰

• Fire and Ice (The Long Journey, Volume 1) (1908-1922) - 5 stars
• The Cimbrians (The Long Journey, Volume 2) (1908-1922) - 5 stars
• Christopher Columbus (The Long Journey, Volume 3) (1908-1922) - 5 stars

Hermann Hesse (1946 Nobel) Switzerland (born in Germany) 🇨🇭 🇩🇪

• Peter Camenzind (1904) - 3.5 stars
• Beneath the Wheel (1906) - 3 stars
• Gertrude (1910) - 4 stars
• Rosshalde (1914) - 3 stars
• Knulp (1915) - 4.5 stars
• Demian (1919) - 3 stars
• Klingsor’s Last Summer (1920) - 3.5 stars
• Siddhartha (1922) - 4 stars
• Steppenwolf (1927) - 4.5 stars
• Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) - 4 stars
• The Journey to the East (1932) - 1.5 stars
• The Glass Bead Game (1943) - 3.5 stars
• Stories of Five Decades (1972) - 4 stars
• The Fiction of Hermann Hesse (an overview)

Bertrand Russell (1950 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧

• The Problems of Philosophy (1912) - 5 stars
• Proposed Roads to Freedom (1918) - 4 stars
• The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (1940) by George Santayana - 2.5 stars

Pär Lagerkvist (1951 Nobel) Sweden 🇸🇪

• Barabbas (1950) - 4 stars

François Mauriac (1952 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• The Kiss to the Leper (1922) - 4 stars

Ernest Hemingway (1954 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• The Sun Also Rises (1926) - 3.5 stars
• A Farewell to Arms (1929) - 3.5 stars

Halldór Laxness (1955 Nobel) Iceland 🇮🇸

• “New Iceland” (1927) in Seven Icelandic Short Stories (1961) - 4.5 stars
• The Atom Station (1948) - 2 stars

Albert Camus (1957 Nobel) France (born in Algeria) 🇫🇷

• The Stranger (1942) - 5 stars
• The Plague (1947) - 3.5 stars

Borris Pasternak (1958 Nobel) Russia (Soviet Union) 🇷🇺

• Doctor Zhivago (1957) - 4 stars

John Steinbeck (1962 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• The Harvest Gypsies (1936) - 4 stars
• In Dubious Battle (1936) - 3.5 stars
• Of Mice and Men (1937)- 4.5 stars
• The Long Valley (1938) - 4.5 stars
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939) - 5 stars
• Cannery Row (1945) - 3.5 stars
• The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951) - 3.5 stars

Mikhail Sholokhov (1965 Nobel) Soviet Union 🇷🇺

• And Quiet Flows the Don (1932) - 5 stars
• The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940) - 5 stars
• Early Stories (1966) - 4 stars

Samuel Beckett (1969 Nobel) Ireland 🇮🇪

• The Collected Shorter Plays (1984) - 2.5 stars

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (1970 Nobel) Soviet Union 🇷🇺

• In the First Circle (1968) - 3.5 stars

Miguel Ángel Asturias (1974 Nobel) Guatemala 🇬🇹

• Men of Maize (1949) - 3.5 stars

Gabriel García Marquez (1982 Nobel) Colombia 🇨🇴

• One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) - 3.5 stars

William Golding (1983 Nobel) United Kingdom 🇬🇧

• Lord of the Flies (1954) - 3 stars

Wole Soyinka (1986 Nobel) Nigeria 🇳🇬

• The Interpreters (1965) - 2 stars

Camilo José Cela (1989 Nobel) Spain 🇪🇸

• The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) - 4.5 stars

Octavio Paz (1990 Nobel) Mexico 🇲🇽

• The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (1950) - 4 stars

José Saramago (1998 Nobel) Portugal 🇵🇹

• The Cave (2000) - 3.5 stars

Günter Grass (1999 Nobel) Germany 🇩🇪

• The Tin Drum (1959) - 1.5 stars

Orhan Pamuk (2006 Nobel) Turkey 🇹🇷

• Snow (2002) - 3.5 stars

Mario Vargas Llosa (2010 Nobel) Peru 🇵🇪

• The Storyteller (1987) - 3.5 stars
• The Feast of the Goat (2000) - 4.5 stars

Mo Yan (2012 Nobel) China 🇨🇳

• Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (2006) - 4 stars

Patrick Modiano (2014 Nobel) France 🇫🇷

• Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas (2014) - 3 stars

Bob Dylan (2016 Nobel) United States of America 🇺🇸

• Chronicles: Volume One (2004) - 4 stars
• The Songs He Didn’t Write: Bob Dylan Under the Influence (2008) by Derek Barker - 5 stars
• Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown (2011) by David Yaffe - 3 stars
• Dylan: Disc by Disc (2015) by John Bream - 4.5 stars
• Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (2015) by Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon - 4 stars
• Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (2017), edited by Jonathan Cott - 4 stars
• Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life (2017) by Scott M. Marshall - 4.5 stars

Olga Tokarczuk (2018 Nobel) Poland 🇵🇱

• Flights (2007) - 3.5 stars
  
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009) - 3.5 stars