Esther's Inheritance, by Sandor Marai

This was an interesting story, albeit not as good as Embers, as far as characters and storyline go.  Like Embers, it is a story told through the memories of people who lived through the events long ago.  In this case, the protagonist is Esther, a woman in her forties, who was betrayed twenty years ago by Lajos, the man she loved, and her sister Vilma.  Lajos is basically a charlatan who is used to getting his way by telling people what they want to hear and talking them out of their money and property while pretending to care nothing about material things at all.  And after twenty years, two children, Vilma’s death, and having to skip town because he talked his father in law into losing most of his assets in fraudulent investments, Lajos is coming back—to take from Esther what little property she has left (the family house and land), which is all she has to live on.

The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments, by Gertrude Himmelfarb

This book does a great job comparing and contrasting the differences of the Enlightenment as experienced in Britain, the U.S., and France.  It's like an introductory, comparative survey course of the various Enlightenment thinkers in the three countries, so do not expect in-depth or detailed analysis on any particular person.  This book is more to give you a general picture of the intellectual climate of those times.  The treatment of the American Enlightenment is the briefest of the three, which was fine with me because I am more familiar with the American founding fathers and the thinkers that influenced them than I am with French or British Enlightenment figures.

Caution:  Your to-read list will grow as a result of reading this book.

Chess Story, by Stefan Zweig

This is now one of my favorite of Stefan Zweig's stories.  It's set on a transatlantic ocean liner.  A couple of passengers, the narrator and a competitive Scottish businessman (who is also a chess aficionado), while away the time with a game of chess.  After the narrator loses, he good naturedly tells the businessman that Czentovic, the top chess grand master is on board ship.  Unable to resist a good game, the businessman organizes a match between Czentovic and all the other passengers.  A mysterious stranger shows up who seems to be a chess genius, giving the passengers' side a realistic chance of winning.  We learn Czentovic's life story, as well as that of the mysterious stranger, who are just about as opposite to one another as it is possible to be, and the chess game becomes something  of a duel between the two men and all each stands for.

This was one of Zweig's last stories, and it was published posthumously, after he and his wife committed suicide in Brazil.  One can't help but regret how deep his despair must have been, and how much additional good work he could have done if he hadn't succumbed to it.

Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages: The Layman's Quick Guide to Thomism, by Dr. Taylor Marshall

If you are looking for a clear, concise introduction to the life and work of St. Thomas Aquinas, and you have little to no background in philosophy or theology, this book does the job well. Dr. Marshall sketches out St. Thomas's life story, and explains the fundamental ideas of Thomist philosophy and the intellectual climate of St. Thomas's time in a simple, straightforward way.

Karl Marx As a Religious Type: His Relation to the Religion of Anthropotheism of L. Feuerbach, by Sergei Bulgakov

Since this is the centenary year of the Russian Revolution, I've been trying to read more about the history of that time and the people who were involved or contributed to it in some way. Karl Marx, as the originator of Marxism, was definitely an intellectual contributor to it. 

In this short book, Russian Orthodox priest and philosopher Sergei Bulgakov analyzes the personality and background of Karl Marx based on his writings and the writings of Marx's contemporaries, and Marx's impact on the socialist movement. Bulgakov was a contemporary of Lenin rather than Marx; he was himself a Marxist in his youth and later returned to and was ordained in his faith. Bulgakov points out how important atheism, the materialist worldview, and the elimination of religion were to Marx (i.e. it was the main feature, not a side show). Marx saw socialism as a means to eliminate religion, rather than elimination of religion being a side effect of socialism eliminating poverty. Among other topics, Bulgakov also cites evidence of Marx's dictatorial and vindictive personality as observed by writings of his contemporaries and his treatment of them, his greater affinity for the ideas of Feuerbach rather than Hegel, and his attitude towards his own ancestral people, the Jews.

This book is available online here.

Embers, by Sandor Marai

Love triangles have got to be among the oldest storylines out there, but this one is very beautifully told. An old aristocratic General living in a remote Hungarian forest receives a visit from a long lost friend, and they reminisce about their childhood, their days at military school and military service... and about the General's long dead wife. The setting and time of the story (interwar Europe) give it a dramatic, almost otherworldly atmosphere, and the story is told obliquely. Situations and emotions are revealed through small details, observations, and remarks in conversation rather than straightforward narrative, which makes it very realistic.

A Tangled Web, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I enjoyed this novel, which consists of the various stories about the members of a large extended clan, all of whom are anxious to see who will inherit a prized family heirloom jug from the matriarch of the family. As with her Anne of Green Gables series, L. M. Montgomery shows her knack for storytelling, finding humor in everyday situations, some common, others not so common, and the joys and sorrows of life in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. Good entertaining read.

The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

This is a sweet little story that reminded me of the Bette Davis movieNow, Voyager. It's about a timid, quiet woman who is endlessly twitted about her plain looks and unmarried state by her insensitive relatives, all of whom take her for granted and generally see her as a nonentity. When a doctor diagnoses her with a serious illness and tells her she only has a year to live, she decides to go out and make the most of the time she has left, learning to be independent from her family, mastering her fears, and finding love.

If you are looking for great literature with deep characters and psychological insight, this is not for you. It's a fun quick read with a heartwarming message.

Réflexions sur la révolution de Février, par Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In this book, Solzhenitsyn analyzes the toxic mix of conditions that brought about the events and consequences of three fateful days in St. Petersburg, from February 28-March 2, 1917 by the Julian calendar, or March 13-15, 2017 by the Gregorian.  Because of an insurrection in St. Petersburg, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Grand Duke Michael, who was equally disinclined to fulfill the obligations emperor.  Solzhenitsyn discusses how conditions, which only affected a small number of people, combined to destroy an enormous country, the majority of whose population were still attached to their traditions, their religion, and their way of life.  These include a lack of responsibility and sense of duty on the part of the royal family and government officials, the intelligentsia’s embrace of radical politics and revolutionary ideas, bad management of the military (which led to large numbers of inexperienced new recruits sitting idle in St. Petersburg), and the incompetence of the Kerensky government that replaced the monarchy.  Thus the Russian empire fell, not because of tyranny or high-handedness on the part of the Czar, but from weakness and lack of leadership.

Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig

This was a very detailed psychological novel about Lieutenant Hofmiller, a soldier who upsets Edith, a young lame girl by asking her to dance at a ball, as he was unaware of her disability. Unwilling to hurt anyone and wishing to do good, he befriends the family, becomes a regular visitor at their house, and allows them to depend more and more on him until he feels obligated to fulfill their expectations. On the other hand, Edith, used to being the center of attention as the only child of wealthy parents, is unable to accept reality full-time. She swings between elation from living in a fantasy world where her condition is curable and where she can look forward to living life as an able bodied woman, and severe depression when she faces reality and can't accept it. The whole household (and soon, Hofmiller too) has made it their primary concern to keep her as much as possible in her fantasy world. There are two other similar couples in the story with which we can contrast the main couple, both of whom married at least in part due to pity on the part of the husband toward the wife: Edith's parents (her father is a self-made millionaire who made his fortune by taking financial advantage of her mother, whom he then felt obligated to marry) and her doctor and his blind wife. Both made successes of their marriages, as compared to Edith and Hofmiller, whose engagement ends in tragedy on the eve of World War I.