I dutifully bought a copy (of “Hannibal and Me”, that is) and have begun to read……..

I had begun my search for your book in the “What’s New – Non Fiction” section of the store, but it wasn’t there. Then I went to the “Books With Buzz” section, but your book wasn’t there either.

The thing here is that, but for your blog, which I had originally serendipitously stumbled upon, I wouldn’t have known of “Hannibal and Me”, and I would have little chance of knowing about it.

Absent your bog, most non-business readers like me, would only know of your book if it was reviewed far more widely than it has been, or if bookstores like my neighbourhood one, displayed it more prominently, or otherwise displayed it to bring it to the attention of the general non-business reader.

In the matter of Alfred P Sloan’s “My Years With General Motors”, I had never heard of it, but I found it sort of interesting after briefly riffling through its pages. I just could buy it and read it after finishing “Hannibal and Me”. If I do, it would be another example of serendipity at work.

I just read Breughel’s Two Monkeys.

I read it slowly (as you know, poetry intimidates me), and was wondering where the poem might go with so few, and then even fewer, words left.

And suddenly, the last two lines punched me in the soul.

Will read more by her.

None of the reporters at The Economist sign their names to any articles. The editorials are all written by a single author using a pseudonym related to their area (Lexington, Banyan, Charlemagne, Bagehot, Schumpeter and Buttonwood). You can find their …

Polish poet (and Nobel Laureate) Wislawa Szymborska died this week. If you haven’t read her, I like her “Brueghel’s Two Monkeys” for starters; it’s one of those terrific poem-painting pairings. Or “The People on the Bridge,” her reaction to a famous Hiroshige print, is another fun pairing.

Anyway, as if she were a character in your book, Szymborska (in a humor befitting an East European) spoke of her life as divided into two parts: before and after the Nobel Tragedy. She was in her early 70s when the tragedy befell her, and still, it was a few years before she wrote again.

Especially the one on Caravaggio and Rembrandt — you may recall from old posts that those two are among my favorites.

The reviewer is not any old reviewer. Patrick Hunt is the leading living Hannibal scholar, so this means a lot. I’ll do a blog post about it later today.

Thanks again!

The reviewer describes your Großonkel as “charismatic”.

Was he?

We northerners like to read our books uninfluenced by what anyone thinks about them.

It’s the way we are.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that our neurological response to our devices is the same as when we gamble. There’s an addictive thing going on.

Thanks, Jim.

I know he also organizes trips to the passes. You might even have run into his group while on your bikes.

Thanks for your lovely blog Andreas! It will be hard to think of our series now without imagining what could have been with stirring sequences of you aboard a donkey…a creative opportunity lost!

Yes the BBC is great for picking up ideas like this – hopefully it might reach the US one day. And it sounds a little unlikely but our youngest brother Sam did haul his bike over Col de la Traversette in snow…a mountain 9,500 feet hight (!) It was an impressive endurance and strength test that brother Ben and I were happy to leave to him! I was sipping cafe au lait at the time in the nearbye Alpine town of Briancon. If you’re interested there’s a little more about this mountain climbing following Hannibal’s possible paths over the Alps here:

http://www.historyextra.com/blog/over-alps

Thanks again for your interest.

All the best

Danny

A little more bite and a little less bark……..

That’s problem one, problem two is instant communication telecommunications devices in the hands of those same people–they feel obligated to use them even if they have nothing to say.

Good for the Beeb to say Yes! Can’t see that happening in the US.

Like your daughter, you are the most intimidating kind of reader — sophisticated, demanding, witty, well read. Now that the copy is in the mail to you, I will instruct your daughter to lower expectations.

I was afraid of this!!

Being the consummate cosmopolitan (vollständig Weltbürger?), I visit regularly the website of “Der Spiegel”, and will keep an eagle eye (adlerisch Auge?!!) there for any reviews of “Hannibal and Me”.

And your logic is flawed, for in spite of having covered Hannibal and Me, neither the WSJ nor the WP have thus far deigned to report on this year’s dearth of snow in Niederösterreich, which has resulted in an explosion of the local wild boar population. Not von weltweiter Wichtigkeit, you say? A potential harbinger of the apocalypse, I say.

and much of the progress forward in Turkey has been reversed/replaced by extremists.

Selbstverständlich, “Ignorieren würden” sollte “Ignorieren würde”.