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,
This regular feature on BIP altered during the past year; my favourite on-the-move notebook sprouted a layer of dust because now that I’m consistently sitting at my desk, I often choose to key my notes directly rather than handwrite. For rereading, I still appreciate handwritten notes; that way, I’m
Every year, GoodReads does a nice job of summarizing my reading (I wish they hadn't been bought out by Amazon.) This year suggests I've read 330 books or 84, 433 pages (that's just 20 pages below my all-time record--if only I'd known). (I also washed the kitchen floor three
While I put the finishing touches on the pie-charts and calculations from 2020’s reading log, there are just a couple other books to talk about that I read (mostly) over the holiday break. Ruth Gilligan’s The Butchers’ Blessing (2020) is praised by two writers who snag my attention: Colum
Before I post about the new reading year, there are a few memorable reads from my 2020 log that I haven’t mentioned yet. Like Pourin’ Down Rain, Cheryl Foggo's memoir about growing up in 1960s Calgary, in a small and tight-knit Black community. When she was young, she heard
