Prose

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

If you tell me the wars are over, then I know the shield walls will be made very soon. Uhtred of Bebbenburg, hero of Bernard Cornwell's .

One hundred years ago this month, the shield walls were made once again, this time with artillery. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the walls have, are, and will be raised again and again and again, wherever people seek to end war once and for all. Read more about The Forever War

Elizabeth of York's mother, Elizabeth Wydville, queen to King Edward IV, died in 1492. When I read that, I thought well, there goes the Middle Ages. Because elsewhere in the world, completely unknown to the English crown, a sailor from Genoa thinks he's about to land in Japan. Cipango, he called it, after a tale told by Marco Polo. Read more about The Last Medieval Queen

In the early years of the 20th century, there was only one damned lawyer that the damned themselves could turn to, and John A. Farrell tells his riveting story in . Read more about One Damned Lawyer

The people who don’t get out much.

That’s how I see people who don’t read fiction. Apparently, 42% of college graduates never read another book after college; 33% never read another book after high school for the rest of their lives. Read more about The People Who Don't Get Out Much

I don't remember where I came across my first issue of Parabola, but I know it was sometime in the spring of 2001. That first issue was called The Garden. Beautiful to the senses and nourishing to the soul and body, a garden was our first home. So said the cover blurb. The first piece inside was the story of Rapunzel. Read more about Parabola