2012-08-07
The sights and sounds of Smyrna, Piraeus and Athens are brought to life by Fragoulis’s finely crafted prose. The cast of characters – manghas, manghissas, and the girls in Kyria Effie’s brothel, are fully realized. The result is a novel which is as tough and intelligent as Kivelli herself.
Review by Margaret Goldik
2012-08-02
Today it is possible to walk in the bookstore and ask for a book to be printed and bound as you wait. The machine is also a powerful tool for authors to create and sell books.
2012-07-14
Van Gogh's “starry, starry night” is the night of mega-stardom. Our view of his art is inevitably coloured by his celebrity.
Vincent van Gogh Almond Blossom, 1890
Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 92 cm
Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
2012-07-06
The Globe and Mail wins the prize for obscurity.
2012-07-01
We need to move on, see the wave coming, and ride it. (Warning: it may be like a tsunami.)
2012-06-26
The meal consists of Le Grand Aïoli, breads and cheeses from Kamouraska, and a perfect strawberry tart. The wine is pale, nuanced, and perfect. The company is lively. Fun!
-- with July postscript from the New York Times.
2012-06-22
Ingrid Bejerman, former director of the renowned Julio Cortázar Latin American Chair, writes about her relationship with the recently deceased Mexican writer and some of the stories his friends remember him by.
Photo: Dulce Ma. Zuniga
2012-06-06
Not long ago I saw the extraordinary Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express, a Josef von Sternberg movie with wonderful black and white cinematography, much of which occurs on a train. In the film Dietrich utters the magnificent line, “it took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.” Presumably not all on the train, but one is allowed to imagine so.
Marylebone Station, London
2012-06-06
The old trains and their stations are marvels of intent and mystery. No wonder so many films make use of them.
King's Cross-St. Pancras, London
2012-05-10
Ah, a book for me, I thought. Every time I have taken the Myers-Briggs test (or a variation of it), I have been on the 100% Introvert end of the scale from Introvert to Extrovert.
2012-04-28
This is the kind of man that young men of my generation and perhaps a younger generation must have wanted to be, especially young men who wanted to write.
Graham Greene, The Comedians (NY: Viking, 1965) is available from Abebooks.
2012-04-19
Who would do that in any other city? I thought happily. It seemed promising—but this wasn’t the day I fell in love with the city.
2012-04-18
Why a town becomes a gathering place of the literati is a subject for literary histories. In Rye’s case, it may well have been the seductions of the past, which certainly seduced Henry James.
Conduit Street, Rye
2012-04-09
An Insider’s View of the NDP Leadership Convention (continued)
By Louise Tremblay Matchett
2012-04-02
An Insider's View of the 2012 NDP Leadership Convention
by Louise Tremblay Matchett
2012-03-29
Amused, this morning, to see my reference to the Sugar Sammy of Literature has made the headlines.
2012-03-16
Very bad news -- and a sign of the times in writing and publishing. We here are going to miss you.
2012-03-12
Locomotive 162, Grand Truck Railway
(Courtesy National Gallery of Canada)
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