Let’s have a quick reading roundup, shall we? I have three books sitting on my desk that deserve better than this, but Everything Changed recently and I’m a little pressed for time. I’ve been puttering along for the last while doing some freelance writing, some writing for free, and some editing. I have been quite…
Month: November 2013
The delicious M.F.K. Fisher
It’s a couple months ago now that I increased my personal happiness tenfold by reading M.F.K. Fisher’s Serve It Forth (1937); I’ve been wondering the whole time how to write about it. This book is both perfect and in a form I’ve never dipped into before–food writing. Essays I am familiar with, certainly (although, sadly,…
Between ourselves and things strange affinities exist: Alphonse Daudet’s Letters From My Windmill
Over at Albino Books, my friend Andrew recently wrote about the beautiful chaos that is browsing in physical bookstores. I would never deny the convenience of online book-buying, especially around Festivus, but it simply can’t replicate or replace the possibility of stumbling upon hard-to-find things you didn’t know you needed to read. As for e-readers:…
An open letter to Toronto City Council
Hey guys, Tough week, hey? We all knew Mayor Ford was trouble, but the last few days have really highlighted just how much trouble–although I suspect, and I know you suspect, that more will soon be revealed. (I’m not even going to bother linking to anything here; THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS, AND IS TALKING ABOUT,…
Beyond the common rules and back again: Anthony Trollope’s Dr Wortle’s School
He may have written something to this effect in his Autobiography, or I may just be incredibly perceptive, but I think Anthony Trollope reveals, near the end of Dr Wortle’s School, the scientific method underpinning all his novels: It is not often that one comes across events like these, so altogether out of the ordinary…
Much more than two bushels of laughter: Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote
It’s pretty wonderful when you read a book so fat with history, matter, and cultural capital that you can barely lift it AND end up really enjoying it. Cervantes’s classic Don Quixote was written between 1605 and 1615; it has undergone several important translations, including one by Smollet (who managed to make his version significantly…
Jam and Idleness 
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