Author Archives: John Sloan

September 2025 We are in a nice walk-up apartment in this very touristy town located onshore in the centre of Como Lake. Bellagio supports (seasonally I guess) about a  hundred restaurants, ranging from waterfront tourist traps to one quite phony … Continue reading →

September 2025 We were just two of a planned group of five, resulting from one of BC Ferries’ surprise mechanical collapses. We hurried to the terminal very early and did a five hour wait not to miss a flight the next … Continue reading →

Elliott, Julia. Hellions: Stories. Tin House, Portland, 2025. F;8/25. I was intrigued by Elliott’s The Wilds story collection back in 2016. The title story was relentlessly wacky but also seemed to carry tacit reference to coming-of-age and gender in an … Continue reading →

August 2025 This renovated eatery replaced another in the main area of a Sechelt waterfront hotel which has also been renovated. The Sechelt waterfront is partly indigenous reservation but I believe this section is public. We were here for the … Continue reading →

Anderson, Scott. King of Kings. Doubleday, New York, 2025. NF; 8/25. The subtitle of this history of the Iranian revolution neatly sums its cautionary message up: “The Iranian revolution: a story of hubris, delusion, and catastrophic miscalculation.” It’s presumed that … Continue reading →

Lacey, Catherine. The Mobius Book. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2025. F; 8/25. This book is well beyond ordinary. I enjoyed it and found it serious and agreed with many of the abstract speculations. The mobius metaphor seems to … Continue reading →

August 2025. The name translates as “the barge” and the restaurant is on the upper floor of what was I think previously a gas and provisions float for boats. It’s open for dinner Thursday through Monday I believe only seasonally, … Continue reading →

Bellow, Saul. More Die of Heartbreak. William Morrow, New York 1987. F;7/25. I decided to read this novel after reading Martin Amis’s apotheosis of Bellow. It’s Bellow’s 10th out of 14 or so novels and because I read The Adventures … Continue reading →

Amis, Martin. Money, A Suicide Note. Vintage, London, 1984 (F;6/25) and Experience, a Memoir. Miramax, London, 2000. (Mem;6/25) A dear friend who loves reading suggested Amis to me as a wonderful writer. I looked up general opinions of his fiction … Continue reading →

Kehlmann, Daniel. The Director. Simon and Schuster, New York 2025. F;5/25. This historic novel deals with the creative and political life of famous Austrian film director G W Pabst. In 2020 Kehlmann published Tyll, another novel which impressed me and … Continue reading →