Monthly Archives: June 2013

MacLeod, Alexander. Light Lifting. Biblioasis 2010. F; December 2010. Seven short stories, nearly all of them about something violent and horrifying. Runners risk their lives staying ahead of a train through a tunnel, swimmers likewise diving into a river from … Continue reading →

Urquhart, Jane. The Stone Carvers. McClelland and Stewart Toronto 2001. F; December 2010. This is a beautiful book, but I would also say a “beautiful book” in the sense that the author sees herself as a “beautiful writer”. Now at … Continue reading →

Mitchell, Shandi. Under This Unbroken Sky. Penguin New York. F; December 2010. Wonderful, and wonderfully horrifying. Mitchell never departs from the realistic and sympathetic in describing the hideous privations of these Ukrainian Canadian settlers in the dirty 30s. And she … Continue reading →

Mawer, Simon. The Glass Room. Abacus London. F; 12/10. There were moments in this one where I thought it was going to cohere in a wonderful way, and it almost does. It takes place in Brno, close to where my … Continue reading →

June 2013. I wonder if Spanish is the current trendy small Paris restaurant idea. This place is in the slightly upscale Rue de Seine on the left bank and offers a small side order of pretension. I should be clear that … Continue reading →

June, 2013. This little place isn’t named in the Michelin guide, and I’m not sure it should be. But it is certainly in the top 10% of the huge welter of tiny restaurants in my sentimental favorite French city. It’s … Continue reading →

June, 2013. I am here buying wine which can be surprisingly stressful so the second night I thought I owed myself a real dinner . This is the only Michelin-named place in town, but I also have some history with … Continue reading →

June 2013. I came upon this through a journalist online article about dreamy wandering round Paris. In the event, I had come into the city from Beaune with two cases of burgundy I somehow managed to temporarily hide in the Gare … Continue reading →

May 31, 2013 (several more recent dates below) A server at Nook, one of our West End favorites, recommended this little place which turned out to be about a block and a half from our Vancouver home. What a find! … Continue reading →

Strout, Elizabeth. The Burgess Boys. Random House, New York. 2013. F; 5/13. I remember reading this author’s linked short-story collection Olive Kittredge and being dazzled. This one is the follow-on big-fiction package, and it’s less tidy, less polished, and I … Continue reading →