Although I loved books about animals when I was a younger reader, in my teens I backed off. I realised that books in which sad things happen to the four-legged and furred or feathered characters were even sadder than the books in which sad things happened to human characters.
Wishart has summer plans. They remind me of Walter’s widow-soaked season in “An Unmarried Man’s Summer”. Here, however, Bonnie is a divorcee. “Like many spiteful, snobbish, fussy men, or a certain type of murderer, Wishart chose his friends among middle-aged solitary women.” It’s not just for effect, this comment:
The winter months are good reading months for me, especially when snug indoors with a view of the snowy cityscape. I've been reading more than I've been reviewing here, so here's a peek into the recent stacks. Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net (1954) and The Sandcastle (1957) were read with
Mavis Gallant knew “fake news” when she saw it. “The picture is an obvious and mischievous fake, and it was with great reluctance that four reputable newspapers decided to run it.” In fewer than a thousand words, “Mousse” considers the status of a once-significant political leader whose position has
The longer the books in the Love Medicine cycle, the harder it is to recall that Louise Erdrich began with short fiction, stories which linked, interconnected, taking their own time to draw in their circles before spiralling outward once more. Tracks and Four Souls were slim volumes, but readers
