tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59901705396250122202024-03-13T07:28:01.280-04:00extraliterary feelingsLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-26012759615558699732011-05-02T12:15:00.000-04:002011-05-02T12:15:06.855-04:00my mother's books
Every spring when the ground thaws and green buds appear as if by magic on trees and shrubs, my mother reads Mary Stewart's Thornyhold. These two events are so intertwined for me that I am not sure if it is spring that sparks the reading or the reading that sparks spring. Last week, I moved back to my hometown and back to my parents' Victorian house, a house that is peopled by my mother's Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-42326055751328774112011-04-17T11:39:00.000-04:002011-04-17T11:39:00.752-04:00reading roundupHere's some links to stuff I've been reading this week:
Lidia Yuknavitch's short piece on all the places she writes.
David Bezmogis thought that he wanted a dog. He may have been wrong.
You know you want to read Fey's memoir.
Sigrid Nunez is talking about Susan Sontag
Wallace's "Backbone" about a boy who wants "to press his lips to every square inch of his body."
Illustrator Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-62642011149716018052011-04-12T13:51:00.000-04:002011-04-12T13:51:24.215-04:00hibakusha
from Random House
Last year I did some research on the social effects related to the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima during WWII for a course that brought together literary and public health discourses. I looked at Kamila Shamsie's, Burnt Shadows, a novel with an immense temporal and geographical scope that puts the fallout from the bombing of Hiroshima in dialogue with the aftermath ofLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-50631735182862303052011-04-08T11:58:00.000-04:002011-04-08T11:58:43.988-04:00rumpus book club
I recently joined the Rumpus Book Club and received Lidia Yuknavitch's beautiful and evocative memoir, The Chronology of Water, which I think is a memoir for people who don't like memoirs. The great part about this book club is that the book selections are unpublished, a detail that makes me feel like a true member of a club with special privileges and maybe even a secret handshake. Visit Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-41965374982418504292011-03-28T19:35:00.000-04:002011-03-28T19:35:45.539-04:00fuzzytownZachariah O'Hora is the author and illustrator of the children's book Stop Snoring, Bernard!
from Amazon
I first came across his work at Tin House, where O'Hora contributed the banner illustration for the site's blog. Here are some of his other illustrations, which I think combine whimsy with drudgery quite nicely.
His work reminds me a litte of Richard Scarry and a little of Wes Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-53418014754555404422011-03-23T11:13:00.000-04:002011-03-23T11:13:53.353-04:00flash reviewTintin in the New World: A Romance
Frederic Tuten
Tuten's novel explores Tintin's transformation from an idol of untouched youthfulness and innocence to a fickle adult, plagued by earthly appetites, desires, and longings. Tuten's prose and plot are most accomplished in the extended and surreal dream Tintin shares with his new love. Here, Tuten recreates the excitement and adventure of Hergé's Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-58301643337625863192011-03-22T18:26:00.000-04:002011-03-22T18:26:04.069-04:00boy wonder
Every morning before school, I sat on the floor with a bowl of cereal to watch The Adventures of Tintin on my family's thirteen inch tv. I'm still not quite sure why I liked this show about a boyish reporter and his dog, but I suspect it had something to do with the ritual of it all. Every morning the same cereal, in the same bowl, with the same tv shows, before I walked the same way to school. Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-48592098271986158112011-03-21T17:15:00.001-04:002011-03-21T17:18:12.795-04:00the lucinda riverJohn Cheever's 1964 short story "The Swimmer" follows the boyish Neddy Merrill as he swims across the county through a chain of swanky swimming pools. The story seems to create a vivid realism, only to shatter this realism as we realize that Neddy's "swim"is a kind of Odyssean journey that leaves him "miserable, cold, tired, and bewildered." Here is my favourite passage, which shows Neddy's cockyLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-75930866787997203522011-03-19T15:35:00.000-04:002011-03-19T15:35:59.284-04:00heading northI recently finished reading The Still Point, the brilliant debut novel from Amy Sackville. These photos from National Geographic are a nice accompaniment to Sackville's novel:
These images are of Admiral Robert Peary's expedition to locate the north pole in 1909. He believed that he had located the pole, but years later studies found that he had missed the mark by many miles.
The Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-38203509835166714882011-03-19T12:34:00.000-04:002011-03-19T12:34:28.587-04:00libraries at the rumpusThe Rumpus has a post on the most beautiful libraries of the world this morning. Check it out here. My favourite is Jay Walker's private library.
Images from ImpactLab
Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-84232553746529978942011-03-15T22:23:00.000-04:002011-03-15T22:23:43.553-04:00recommendedToo Much HappinessAlice Munro
The ten stories in Munro's latest collection demonstrate the author's ability to manipulate plot and language without anyone even noticing. Accompanying Munro's graceful writing is an exciting and terrifying tension, and the threat of violence seems ready to burst through the delicate surface of almost every story. The most powerful is "Free Radicals" because of theLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-47719059858514950132011-03-14T10:14:00.000-04:002011-03-14T10:14:31.014-04:00renata liwskaWhile making the rounds this morning, I came across The Quiet Book written by Deborah Underwood and beautifully illustrated by Renata Liwska. The book was recently shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and The Globe has a short review of The Quiet Book here.
The Globe article directed me to Liwska's website and blog, Pandas and Such, where she has lots of lovely Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-11164249281017429772011-03-13T10:37:00.000-04:002011-03-13T10:37:25.598-04:00little savages
from Ernest Thompson Seton Institute Pages
Ernest Thompson Seton established The League of Woodcraft Indians at the beginning of the 20th century as a program for youth to play at being Indian and learn to interact with nature through native traditions. Seton's movement lost momentum by 1910, and he felt that Robert Baden-Powell hijacked his idea, transforming it into the immensely popular Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-61763798705560037252011-03-12T12:59:00.000-05:002011-03-12T12:59:43.360-05:00great stories of canada
I found this 1958 book by Edward McCourt while wading through Wayfarer Books in Kingston, Ontario. Illustrated by Jack Ferguson, Revolt in the West is the 17th issue of a 23 book series titled Great Stories of Canada and published by Macmillan. Intended for young readers, Revolt in the West provides a history of the Riel Rebellion that is both sympathetic to Riel and the Métis people, Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-32027769723109653362011-03-10T09:50:00.000-05:002011-03-10T09:50:00.658-05:00"bejeweled double festooned plus skull for girls"
I saw this cluttered work by Alberta artist Chris Millar at the "It Is What It Is" exhibition at the National Gallery in Ottawa a few months ago. The exhibition featured a lot of interesting contemporary Canadian art, but this is the one that stuck with me. At the time, I had to compete with a large group of middle-aged women to get a good look at this thing, but from what I can tell it's a Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-30306996672875238702011-03-09T16:59:00.000-05:002011-03-09T16:59:32.197-05:00where writers writere-nest.com has a fascinating picture gallery of the writing huts of some famous authors. My favourite has to be Roald Dahl's at his home, The Gypsy House, in Buckinghamshire, England:
Visit re-nest to see the huts of other famous writers, including Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau.
Images from re-nest.comLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-35423816775143510632011-03-08T13:26:00.000-05:002011-03-08T13:26:37.406-05:00Let me pick your brain
The 36th issue of McSweeney’s is an eclectic collection that attempts to imagine what the contents of someone’s head might look like--in a figurative sense, of course. As Brian McMullen writes in his introduction to this head: “I’d love nothing more than a chance to crack your forehead open along a tidy seam and give the contents of your mind a nice gore-free sift.” The grey matter here is aboutLarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5990170539625012220.post-21988198217573641382011-03-08T11:09:00.000-05:002011-03-08T11:09:42.209-05:00An Old Favourite
My girlfriend gave me these wonderfully used volumes of A.A. Milne’s children’s stories and verses as a Christmas gift this year. The World of Christopher Robin is a collection of verses including When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, published between 1924 and 1926. These collections are not as well known as The House at Pooh-Corner, but The World of Christopher Robin does contain Larissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218524165146333216noreply@blogger.com1