Most of the time, I turn to a story for some sense of security. For an explanation or a way to orient myself. If I’m not sure how to think about something, how to feel about a situation, sometimes reading about it in fiction has allowed me to temporarily
Of the summer books I mentioned earlier, seven I’ve read, one was recalled to the library for another reader, and three are underway (the Rabagliati graphic novel, Seven Twilights and Jubilee). I also picked a children’s book to reread (a nostalgic favourite—Jean Little’s Stand in the Wind) and a
Douglas Bruton’s Blue Postcards (2021) came to me via ILL (thanks to the Forest Hill branch of the Toronto Public Library) because Susan, Mme Bibi, Kaggsy and Simon all loved it; so I was expecting to enjoy it, but I was not expecting to find summer in it.
When I requested Dear Writer, Dear Actress, a collection of letters exchanged between Anton Chekov and Olga Knipper, I expected them to arrive when Bill and Bron and I were reading “Gooseberries”. (Our project page is here.) If they had, my note-taking would have revolved around connections with their friendship and
There is just one more story left in our project—and it’s the shortest, only six pages, the second by Tolstoy. In the course of looking for a cover image, I learned that it was published after Tolstoy’s death, and that it was based on a real person. (Inadvertently, I
