Mavis Gallant is sitting “in her apartment on Rue Jean Ferrandi” when, in a “voice gentle yet commanding”, she says “There are two kinds of writers to me, the Tolstoy and the Dostoevsky.” With this Russian project underway, I sat up a little straighter. “And they’re both extraordinary,” she
Over the weekend, I’ve been reading Ananda Devi, recipient of the 2024 Neustadt Prize (which some call the American Nobel). Three of her books have made their way to me via various Ontario libraries this month: Eve Our of Her Ruins from Don Mills Library in Toronto, Manger L’Autre
As February was winding down, I realised it had been some time since I picked up a book about writing and, so, I reached for The Writer’s Library (2020), which I found remaindered last autumn. It’s a set of interviews conducted by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager which sounds
We’re in a seven-month-long exploration of George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, with the second story: Turgenev’s “The Singers” (1852), first published in his second volume of A Sportsman’s Sketches. Since we last “met”, I’ve been running into George Saunders regularly. He blurbed the insert
You might remember that I have resolved to choose some books differently this year. Not only library duedates and review deadlines: I have been trying to look out my window as often as I look down at my book. And, so, I reread Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s
