Published by Vintage, 2005, 228 pages. “My past, or lack of it, had caught up with me. I’d been bogged down in the same place for too long, trapped by habits and memories. I was clotted with rootedness. And in the end I’d fallen ill and run out of words. My Irish grandfather, a day-worker …
Month: January 2024
Reflecting Argentinian Society: An Interview with Claudia Piñeiro
(Note: This interview was originally conducted in Spanish and translated by Leslie Jones.Lea aquí la versión en español.) Claudia Piñeiro is an Argentinian author and scriptwriter. One of her best-known books is Las Viudas de los Jueves (2005, published in English as Thursday Night Widows, 2009), which was made into a film in 2009 and …
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A Book of Days: Patti Smith
Published by Bloomsbury, 2022, 386 pages. This is a book that keeps giving. The multi-talented Patti Smith—singer, songwriter, photographer, author, painter—has put together a collection of photographs (most of them taken by Smith with her 250 Land Camera), one for each day of the year. This book came from her Instagram account, which she started …
Cloud Cuckoo Land: Anthony Doerr
Published by 4th Estate, 2021, 577 pages. “Maybe in the old days men did walk the earth as beasts, and a city of birds floated in the heavens between the realms of men and gods. Or maybe, like all lunatics, the shepherd made his own truth, and so for him, true it was.” “‘I know …
The House of Doors: Tan Twan Eng
Published by Canongate, 2023, 306 pages. British Malaya, 1921. The writer William Somerset Maugham (referred to in the book as Willie) is staying with his old friend Robert Hamlyn and his wife Lesley. Willie is going through a difficult time: his writer’s block is compounded by the fact that he has just learned that he …
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