Spring 2021, In My Reading Log: Family, Food, Feminism, Faith, Fakery and Fantasy

2021-04-05T12:08:13-04:00

Nancy Johnson’s The Kindest Lie (2021) reminds me of Terry McMillan for its focus on Black working women’s lives and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers for its slant towards mothering. The novel looks back, specifically to the election of Barack Obama in 2008: “Their feet felt light and their chests,

Spring 2021, In My Reading Log: Family, Food, Feminism, Faith, Fakery and Fantasy2021-04-05T12:08:13-04:00

Writers in Novels: Eleanor Dark’s The Little Company (1945) #AWW

2021-01-19T17:26:44-05:00

It’s a time of “political and intellectual crisis” in The Little Company. Sound familiar? Drusilla Modjeska’s introduction situates readers in Dark’s depiction of ordinary life in Sydney and Katoomba, in this time of “recession, nuclear threat and more failed expectations” in Australia. The Little Company is Dark’s seventh novel,

Writers in Novels: Eleanor Dark’s The Little Company (1945) #AWW2021-01-19T17:26:44-05:00

Return Trips: Here and Elsewhere

2020-12-27T14:26:34-05:00

Over the year, my #HereandElsewhere project took me to the following places in my reading: Copenhagen, London, Havana, Kyoto, Paris, San Francisco, Marrakech, Mexico City, Rome, Shanghai, Amsterdam and New York City. But even while an ordinary desk-top calendar inspired me to read and watch beyond my usual borders, I was even more acutely aware of

Return Trips: Here and Elsewhere2020-12-27T14:26:34-05:00

Mavis Gallant’s “A State of Affairs”

2020-06-01T20:09:43-04:00

If Forain was reading this story, the one which follows the story about him, in Mavis Gallant’s ninth collection, he would be so disappointed to hear that M. Wroblewski can’t find a thing to read in Paris. “There are no books worth reading—nothing but pornography and translated Western trash.”

Mavis Gallant’s “A State of Affairs”2020-06-01T20:09:43-04:00

An Act of Homage: Rereading Wayson Choy

2020-04-30T09:08:45-04:00

Rereading Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony (1995) is a blatant act of homage. When I first heard Choy read from his work, he was promoting his memoir Paper Shadows (1999) at a Pride event. He was reading with Marnie Woodrow and Sky Gilbert: one, a curly-haired slightly messy young

An Act of Homage: Rereading Wayson Choy2020-04-30T09:08:45-04:00
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