Prose

There are things worse than communism, it turned out, and in Iraq we brought them about ourselves. I say this as someone who supported regime change.

“The men in our realm shall have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights and concessions well and peacefully, freely and quietly, fully and completely for them and their heirs of us and our heirs in all things and places forever.” Magna Carta, Clause 63

There are many illustrations sprinkled throughout Orhan Pamuk's , all of them in black and white, so that everything, the city, the family, Orhan Pamuk himself, looks like figures cut out of old travelogues or forgotten Kokak prints found at the back of a bottom desk drawer. Read more about A Study in Black and White

If we in America know Colette at all, we know her through Gigi, the 1954 movie starring Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan, and featuring the now problematic little song, Thank Heaven for Little Girls, performed by the inimitable Maurice Chevalier. I like it anyway. Read more about Colette, Again

reads rather like a glimpse into the lives of the passengers on the HMS Titanic. As a matter of fact, toward the end of the narrative, Elinor Glyn, one of Ms. Nicolson’s cast of characters, thinks to start a new life in New York and very nearly books passage on the pride of the White Star Line. Her sister goes without her, and survives the journey. Read more about The Perfect Summer

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, . Read more about Calvino

Distingué: adjective

having a distinguished manner or appearance

Demotic: adjective

denoting or relating to the kind of language used by ordinary people; popular or colloquial:
synonyms: popular · vernacular · colloquial · idiomatic · vulgar · common

I was stoned on my first voyage through Ulysses. That was back in 1970-something, and I was living with my second husband and the child of my first marriage in a small house in Green Bay, WI. Smoking pot was not something to which I had become at all accustomed in the course of my nearly 30 years - it wasn't until I reached Green Bay that, if I remember correctly, the neighbors across the street turned me on. Read more about Reading Ulysses

How do you fall in love with a city? I've fallen in love with a few of them: London, Venice, Istanbul. I fell in love with London before I ever got there, so when I did get there, I don't think I even saw the London of today. It seemed as if I already knew it like the back of my hand. Everywhere I went, familiar names called out to me. Baker Street, Bloomsbury, Tower Bridge. The Clink. The Clink!? Well, that explains that. Istanbul. Read more about Roman Reverie

Even with my reservations, I think every one of these is worth the price of admission - and should you use one of my links to buy a ticket, I get a piece of the action. Happy reading.

Written by a great-granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West about a summer a couple of years before the Great War, it is a reminder that the days of our innocence were not only not quite as innocent as we might have imagined, but far more innocent than we knew in light of the horror that is to come. A cautionary tale. Read more about Reading List October 2014