A split second of silence. Suddenly, the faint sound of birdsong and a close up image appears on the screen, – a bird perched on a branch, a close-up of a rose, a bee hovering over a flower – stunningly vivid if you own a high def television. I sip my tea. Cut to a widescreen shot of the garden. The man himself walks into … Continue reading Welcome to Gardeners World
At what age do we as readers start requiring linear narratives? And demand that all books tell us stories? Continue reading What Do Margaret Wise Brown & Georges Perec Have In Common?
Reading has been slow these last few weeks. So my apologies, dear readers. More reviews are in the works – promise. I’ve been thinking a lot about personal libraries of late, and not just my own (though I do have design drawings for bookshelves I’m planning for the living room). It started with Phantoms on the Bookshelves, which made me reconsider the value of a working … Continue reading The “Private” Library
Tomorrow, darling readers, you’ll find me in rainy London. That’s right, I’m jumping the pond for a day. Kimbofo (a.k.a – Kim Forrester, one of my blogger icons) invited me to spend this Tuesday at her blog Reading Matters. It’s Triple Choice Tuesday – where each week she has a reader, author or blogger discuss three books that are important to them. Past Tuesdays’ line-ups … Continue reading Just Another American Expat in London
Like the narrator of Sergio Chejfec’s novel My Two Worlds, I am an inveterate walker. Never to be confused with a hiker, city walkers are an entirely separate category who delight in the organized, the man-made, the carefully choreographed. We choose “To walk and nothing but. Not to walk without a destination, as modern characters have been pleased to do, attentive to the novelties … Continue reading My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec (translated from the Spanish by Margaret B. Carson)
READER AT LARGE 