Category: Memoir

Essay, Garden, Memoir, Non-Fiction

“The two central activities in my life — alongside writing — have been reading and gardening.” – Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively was born in 1933. She’s written over fifty books — novels for adults & children, plus some non-fiction. Life in the Garden is a collection of essays very like the series of gardening articles by the American writer Katherine S. White. Originally written for The New Yorker, White’s pieces were collected and published by her husband after her death in Onward and Upward … Continue reading “The two central activities in my life — alongside writing — have been reading and gardening.” – Penelope Lively

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Garden, Memoir, Non-Fiction

Return to GhostTown Farm

The San Francisco Chronical published this article on April 19, 2019 under the headline: Did Rising Rents Kill the Bay Area’s Urban Homesteading Movement? by Samantha Nobles-Black. The final two paragraphs give an update on Novella Carpenter, whose Farm City: The Education of An Urban Farmer had a huge impact on me when I reviewed it back in 2009. More than any other book, it … Continue reading Return to GhostTown Farm

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Garden, Memoir, Non-Fiction

Revisiting May Sarton – Plant Dreaming Deep: A Journal

Now I’m no longer a judge and my reading life has gone back to normal, I’ve been catching up on a backlog of reading. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with gardening. This isn’t entirely new. I posted a month-long series back in 2009 (the year this blog started) on gardening books, though my focus back then was on vegetable gardening. These days, while I have reintroduced … Continue reading Revisiting May Sarton – Plant Dreaming Deep: A Journal

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Editorial, Essay, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Reading Accessories, Translation

A Quick Post On A Day Spent Reading, Fake Fireplaces & Sergio Pitol

I’ve set aside today to read.  My usual routine for days like this is to make prodigious amounts of tea, put the “fireplace” video on the television and pretend I’m stranded in a Scottish Inn. The video operates under the same concept as the Yule Log.  Which, for those who haven’t had the pleasure, is played during the holidays on public television – transforming television screens … Continue reading A Quick Post On A Day Spent Reading, Fake Fireplaces & Sergio Pitol

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Biography, Literary Awards, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Translation

Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French by Sara Meli Ansari

Title: Letter to Jimmy Author: Alain Mabanckou Translator: Sara Meli Ansari Publisher: Soft Skull Press, Berkeley (2014) ISBN: 978 1 59376 601 6 There has long been a  tendency in the West to over-simplify African nations. The most obvious example  being the habit of dispensing with identifying the 56 countries which comprise the continent as individual nations and instead referring to them unilaterally as “Africa”. … Continue reading Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French by Sara Meli Ansari

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