Elizabeth Harrower in Australian Reading Month 2023

2023-10-24T10:50:13-04:00

What is it about the Australian Text Classics list that’s so appealing? The North York branch of the Toronto Public Library has quite a few of them, including Elizabeth Harrower’s The Long Prospect (1958) which I’m happy to read for Brona’s Books Australian Reading Month. What I enjoyed about

Elizabeth Harrower in Australian Reading Month 20232023-10-24T10:50:13-04:00

Connecting Thread: From Secrecy to Corruption (3 of 5)

2021-12-27T15:23:02-05:00

Another voice-driven young woman’s story—Fatima Daas’s The Last One (2021)—held me rapt throughout. At first, I wondered if the repetitive variations on “My name is Fatima” that open each segment of the story would grate on me but, perhaps because the prose is arranged so that it’s almost-verse-like, it

Connecting Thread: From Secrecy to Corruption (3 of 5)2021-12-27T15:23:02-05:00

Here and Elsewhere: Paris

2020-06-02T08:13:47-04:00

Although it was a challenge to find Kyoto within these four walls (without access to the public library, still in lockdown), it was easy to find Paris for May’s Here and Elsewhere. And if my calendar image looks familiar, it’s because a photograph of the same scene has frequently

Here and Elsewhere: Paris2020-06-02T08:13:47-04:00

Québecois Reads: Sealing the Deal

2019-05-27T18:57:14-04:00

The title of Pasha Malla’s 2015 article in The New Yorker’s Page-Turner says it all: “Too Different and Too Familiar: The Challenge of French-Canadian Literature.” Because it is a challenge to locate French-Canadian literature within the landscape of Canadian Literature, even for those of us who devote a significant

Québecois Reads: Sealing the Deal2019-05-27T18:57:14-04:00

Mavis Gallant’s “An Autobiography”

2018-05-15T10:53:52-04:00

“I served coffee in cups with Liberté and Patrie and a green-and-white shield of the Vaud on them. The parents of a pupil had bought them in Montreux for me once." Erika is a school-teacher, in a village a half-day's train ride from Montreux, Switzerland. She teaches girls elementary

Mavis Gallant’s “An Autobiography”2018-05-15T10:53:52-04:00
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