In which I discuss recent reading which deserves particular attention: two novels, spanning an African immigrant’s contemporary experience in London and a trio of English sisters’ experience of the interwar years, and a graphic memoir spanning a young boy’s experiences in Syria, France and Libya. In Harare North (2009), Brian
The image of the father in this story, unable to sleep, counting his sons-in-law instead of sheep, makes me smile. The way that he matches his memory of their faces with the litany of names, his uncertainty about the fifth, his debates over which of them is married to
In which I read, while sitting in a café, in a library and in various TTC stations. While longer volumes, like Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx and Andrew Miller’s Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, stay at home. Charles Quimper’s In Every Wave (2017; Trans. Guil Lefebvre, 2018) Narrated by
Now I wonder if I didn’t dream it. This image of a red rose and a white spider curled inside the petals. Was it a part of this story? Or, does it belong in one of the other books I’ve been reading this week? Even though I’ve reread “Jorinda and
Last year, February’s tally suggested it was one of my busiest reading months. Which I chalk up to January being over-stuffed with reading ambitions, which overflowed into the following month. This year, that feels true once more. With the exception of L’Arabe du futur, a graphic memoir scooped up randomly
