Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011

Alfred Nobel was interested in social issues. He developed a special engagement in the peace movement. An important factor in Nobel’s interest in peace was his acquaintance with Bertha von Suttner. Perhaps his interest in peace was also due to the use of his inventions in warfare and assassination attempts? Peace was the fifth and final prize area that Nobel mentioned in his will.

Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five persons who are chosen by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament of Norway), Oslo, Norway.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work".

How to read a book

　　More than that– I never fell behind or stopped. I was always ahead of schedule for the entire year. So now, this coming year, guess what? I’d like you to do the same. Here’s how.
Why in God’s Name You Would Want To Do This
It feels awesome. It gives you an amazing amount of ideas. It helps you think more thoroughly. It’s better than TV and even the internet. It makes you understand the world more. It is a building block towards a habit of completion. Did I mention it feels awesome?… whatever, just do it already.

Why One a Week?
First of all, why so many, why not just “read more books?” I’d argue that setting a massive goal, something crazy like one a week, actually helps. To make a comparison, the body reacts strongly to large wounds, expending significant energy to heal them. Small wounds, it doesn’t think much of, which means they can sometimes take longer to heal. So setting a massive goal will make you take it seriously.
So, that’s first. Make your goal massive and unreasonable so that you freak out a little. :)
One Day at a Time
The average book I read was maybe 250-300 pages. Some were larger, some were smaller. I broke this down to 40 pages a day, which I read early on so I can get it over with. It’s an easy, manageable goal, which doesn’t seem nearly so daunting as 52 books in a year. This is critical to managing your emotional state, making it feel like it’s totally reasonable.
Make It a Routine and Stack It
I have a habit right now of getting up, showering, etc., and then going out for breakfast every morning, sitting at counter at the same restaurant, and drinking coffee until I’ve read my 40 pages.
Why do I do it like this? Because I know that I’m kind of weak-willed. I’m betting you can admit this about yourself too, and doing so will help you set everything into its proper place.
Oh, and a protip: Set it up early in the day, as early as possible. Like the Artist’s Way’s morning pages and Twyla Tharp’s exercise regimen (discussed here), it must occur early or we will put it off. This is the same with every habit– you must chain them together for them to work.
Use Every Moment
If you have a commute, use it. If you have a lunch break, use that. This is something I’m just figuring out, but the ability to whip out your book quickly and read 2 pages will help you out significantly, especially in getting ahead, which will be your biggest asset and give you a rewarding feeling. Further, getting ahead will help you take your time with the hard books that are really dense and worth taking time on.
It’s Ok To Give Up… Kind Of
If something sucks (or feels tough), it’s ok give up on it– for now. You can do this when you’re ahead of schedule and it won’t screw with you too badly, and then you can go back to that book every little while until you finish it.
I did this a number of times this year, which means the number of books I started was probably in the 60-65 range (I finished 54.)
It’s Ok To Cheat
Is your deadline closing on you, and you feel you may fall behind? Holy crap! Ok, it’s time to cheat. Choose a quick book and read it, something you may have read before, enjoy a lot, and can breeze through.
“This is cheating,” you may say. I would agree. But the short term cheating to help yourself succeed in the long run on this goal is more important than hard-headed idea that every book you read has to be frikkin War and Peace. It doesn’t. This is to enrich your life, not to make you feel like crap.
By the way, even small books can be incredible. This year, I read the following books that were small but awesome: The Dip, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, Man’s Search For Meaning, Vagabonding, and Of the Dawn of Freedom.
Never Fall Behind
Never “owe yourself one” or deduct from the bank account, saying you’ll get back to it later. Your weekly deadline (the first is on January 7th) will help you stay on track, but falling behind may make you feel helpless and make you consider giving up. You have to control your emotional state from dropping to this level, where you feel it’s hopeless, etc., and you do that by always being ahead of schedule.
In Conclusion
Reading has made me a much better, more complete, and happier person. All the world’s wisdom is contained in books– most of it is not on the internet or known by people in your social group, so this can really help you expand, if you let it. So start today.

To write should choose a best time

　　I have been reading Claire Tomalin's bicentennial biography of Charles Dickens – the latest in a long line that begins with The Life of Charles Dickens by the novelist's friend and adviser John Forster, and includes important studies by Peter Ackroyd, Michael Slater and, most recently, Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas Fairhurst.

The thing I always take away from reading about the Inimitable, as he styled himself (half-joking), is his prodigious energy and his Victorian capacity for sheer hard work. Reviews, letters, petitions, journalism, stories, plays, scraps of poetry, more letters on myriad topics (from interior decor to prison reform), and finally of course the 14 great novels themselves.
But then, as you go deeper into Tomalin, you discover that Dickens, in his prime, used to compress his literary energies into five hours, roughly 9am to 2pm, after which he would walk incessantly, and put his mind into neutral. He might return to what he'd written in the morning later in the evening, but those five hours held the key to his output. Which raises the question: what's the best time of day to write? and its corollary: how many hours are necessary?
Some writers (Dickens among them) are larks. Others – more nocturnal – are owls. Robert Frost, whose remote Vermont cabin I visited recently in company with his biographer Jay Parini, never started work till the afternoon, and often stayed up till two or three in the morning, not rising until midday, or even later. Proust, famously, worked night and day in a cork-lined room. I remember reading somewhere that Raymond Chandler observed that it was impossible to write well for more than four hours a day. What do you do in the afternoon?
There's also the question of how long it might take to complete a novel. Here, you encounter literary legends. Faulkner claimed to have completed As I Lay Dying in six weeks. In the mid-1930s, PG Wodehouse, who wrote fast once he had the mechanics of his plots straight, polished off the last 10,000 words of Very Good, Jeeves! in a single day. In his autobiography, A Sort of Life, Graham Greene describes writing Stamboul Train on benzedrine, to pay the bills, working against the clock. Further back, Samuel Johnson wrote Rasselas, which is short, in a fortnight to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral. Or so it's said.
More usually, a 60-70,000 word novel seems to take at least a year to complete, allowing for two or three drafts, although often the first, rough outline can get written in a matter of weeks. The strange truth about a lot of fiction is that the dominant moments that animate an entire novel can occur to the writer in a matter of minutes. After that, in the words of one New Zealand writer I recall with affection, "it's just typing".
Dickens, of course, lived in the golden age of the typesetter. His strong, decisive manuscripts (he boasted a very clear hand) were swiftly transformed into galley proofs, for endless re-writing, the really time-consuming part of the process. The revision is the bit that many writers really enjoy, once the heavy lifting of the first draft is done.

The Landmark Books of Haruki Murakami

　　We simply haven’t showcased enough of Japan’s writing talent so let’s start with Haruki Murakami. He writes novels, he writes short stories, he writes non-fiction, he has a shelf filled with literary awards and he’s sold a lot of books.
Murakami is one of the most important figures in modern literature and is always prepared to challenge readers and critics with books that don’t conform to traditional narrative structures. Acclaimed as his fiction is, one of Murakami’s most engaging titles is about running – his 2008 book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, shows another side of his character.

He started writing at the end of his twenties and his debut novel was called Hear the Wind Sing. He followed that book with a sequel called Pinball, 1973. A Wild Sheep Chase completed his ‘Rat’ trilogy.
In the mid-1980s, Murakami penned a fantasy called Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and then wrote Norwegian Wood – a two-volume bestseller about nostalgia, loss and sexuality that really put him on the map.
The 1990s saw The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (a novel about an unemployed man that shows an apparently mundane life is actually very complicated) and Sputnik Sweetheart (a novel about loneliness and conforming to society’s expectations).
This century he was been acclaimed for Kafka on the Shore (an unconventional narrative with two plots running side by side) and also published an anthology called Birthday Stories, which is just that, and includes work from Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace and Paul Theroux.
Haruki Murakami has climbed two distinct literary mountains – first making the grade in Japan and then having his English translations acclaimed by literary critics in North America and Europe. His team of translators deserves a nod of appreciation.
Murakami latest novel is 1Q84, published in Japan in 2009 but the English translation did not appear until 2011.