I love it when one read brushes up against another and this happened twice with two of mine this reading month.First, in Christina Longford's Making Conversation (1931), I came across this: "Miss Spencer at the High School had always scolded her for saying 'well,' and used to ask, 'Where's
1949; New Canadian Library 1990 I don’t really need an answer to the question I’ve posed. I understand why Persephone would have chosen to print Hetty Dorval over The Innocent Traveller: Ethel Wilson’s first book is certainly a striking work and brings to mind other brilliant novellas (e.g.
Elizabeth Smart’s Autobiographies (1987) I vividly recall my first attempt at By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept; I read about one page and set it aside because I’d been looking for a quick read. Despite its slim form, Elizabeth Smart’s work is the sort that, for me,
Here are the bits that biased me towards liking Marina Endicott's novel before I'd read more than two pages. 1. The pudding-skin metaphor at the top of the second page. I think pudding-skins are far more versatile than most writers give them credit for and I overuse metaphors with them
Those who have already seen the exhaustive and enticing biography of L.M. Montgomery that Mary Rubio published last year might wonder whether readers need another biography of this 20thC writer, but these two are very different. Urquhart's will appeal to those who admired Carol Shield's slim biography of Jane Austen,
