Author Archives: John Sloan

Obreht, Tea. The Tiger’s Wife. Random House, New York, 2011. F; 9/21. Not long ago I was on a walk with my seven-year-old granddaughter and her dad, and she favoured me with one of those moments where you later wish … Continue reading →

October 2021 I’m a long way from being an outdoorsy huntin shootin kinda guy, but one way to spend time with my sons in their 30s is to travel to remote locations and try to keep up with them as … Continue reading →

Timimi, Sami. Insane Medicine. Independent publication 2021. NF; 9/21. This is a surprisingly radical but for me wise and helpful look at modern psychiatry. Dr. Timimi is a UK child psychiatrist who will definitely be seen by the psychiatry and … Continue reading →

Kafka, Franz. The Castle. Translation from German by Mark Harman, Schocken, New York, 1998. Original publication as Das Schloss, 1926. F; 7/21. The first time I read any Kafka was in a university European Literature in Translation course as an … Continue reading →

Hoffman, David E. The Dead Hand. Anchor, New York, 2009. NF; 5/21. This is a heavily researched study of the Cold War and analysis of the former Soviet Union’s covert development and maintenance not only of a huge nuclear arsenal … Continue reading →

Peterson, Jordan. Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life. Random House Canada, Toronto, 2021. NF; 3/21. Peterson is at it again, here with I think a sadder and maybe not-much wiser version of his 12 Rules For Life (which I … Continue reading →

Lawrence, DH. Women in Love. Public Domain edition, first published by Thomas Seltzer, New York, 1920. F; 3/21 After reading The Bad Side of Books and recalling The Rainbow, I wanted to revisit Lawrence’s fiction. Women in Love was apparently … Continue reading →

March 2021 This is one of the CNR/CPR hotels built in the late 19th and early 20th century by the great Canadian railroad companies. Its construction started in 1929, stalled by the depression and then finished in 1939. It still … Continue reading →

Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem. Harcourt, New York, 1999. NF; 2/21. For most of my life I’ve approached poetry with a chip on my shoulder: show me what the big deal is. I’ll begin to read a poem … Continue reading →

Batuman, Elif. The Idiot. Penguin, New York, 2017. F; 1/21. Batuman is a Turkish-American born in New York who has been called a “language freak and geek”. I imagine her undergrad arts degree from Harvard and PhD in comparative literature … Continue reading →