Alistair MacLeod’s “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood” (1973)

2021-07-29T14:21:53-04:00

Those of you who are reading here now, but not reading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, will probably only be interested in the first couple of paragraphs after this introduction. Feel free to skip past the section that I've titled The Underneath, written with those who know the story-or other

Alistair MacLeod’s “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood” (1973)2021-07-29T14:21:53-04:00

Fiercely Reading Indie: Seven Bookchats, In Brief

2021-05-21T19:05:58-04:00

Earlier this year, Karen and Lizzy hosted ReadIndies and it reminded me how many years had passed since an installment of my Fiercely Reading Indie project (the most extensive was my deep-dive into House of Anansi’s backlist). Maybe I’d slipped into devotedly reading from the Big Five, I wondered.

Fiercely Reading Indie: Seven Bookchats, In Brief2021-05-21T19:05:58-04:00

Spring 2021, In My Reading Log: Family, Food, Feminism, Faith, Fakery and Fantasy

2021-04-05T12:08:13-04:00

Nancy Johnson’s The Kindest Lie (2021) reminds me of Terry McMillan for its focus on Black working women’s lives and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers for its slant towards mothering. The novel looks back, specifically to the election of Barack Obama in 2008: “Their feet felt light and their chests,

Spring 2021, In My Reading Log: Family, Food, Feminism, Faith, Fakery and Fantasy2021-04-05T12:08:13-04:00

Writers in Novels: Eleanor Dark’s The Little Company (1945) #AWW

2021-01-19T17:26:44-05:00

It’s a time of “political and intellectual crisis” in The Little Company. Sound familiar? Drusilla Modjeska’s introduction situates readers in Dark’s depiction of ordinary life in Sydney and Katoomba, in this time of “recession, nuclear threat and more failed expectations” in Australia. The Little Company is Dark’s seventh novel,

Writers in Novels: Eleanor Dark’s The Little Company (1945) #AWW2021-01-19T17:26:44-05:00

Witness: Carol Shields’ Happenstance and The Stone Diaries

2020-12-27T14:27:37-05:00

The call for witnesses in The Stone Diaries resonates throughout Shields’ work: “Life is an endless recruiting of witnesses. It seems we need to be observed in our postures of extravagance or shame, we need attention paid to us. Our own memory is altogether too cherishing, which is the

Witness: Carol Shields’ Happenstance and The Stone Diaries2020-12-27T14:27:37-05:00
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