Magnificent Octopus

In no particular order (except for maybe they happen to be piled this way, and ordering them in any other fashion is beyond me for the momen...

(Which post turns out to be really about just the one book, my having lost focus, or found focus, and saving some other ramblings for later....

(33 years ago today)

In 1984, you could exterminate a Dalek by pushing it out of a 2nd storey window. Since the 3rd season of the new series of Doctor Who ended,...

Did anyone besides myself actually read Kate Mosse's Labyrinth through to the end? Did you hate it as much as I did? Do you care that M...

"...But just understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the...

... one of which I was fortunate enough to attend (more on this as soon as I'm able)... Read: The City of Words , by Alberto Manguel. ...

It was February when she announced she wanted to be a pirate for Halloween, and every few weeks thereafter, she reminded me of the fact. For...

The war came. My friends fell away, most married and soon were showing their young bodies much swollen in parks, and, later on, were sitting...

For the little terrors in your life: The 13 Ghosts of Halloween , written by Robin Muller and illustrated by Patricia Storms. The story'...

Or: how I plan to increase my IQ by 10 points in less than 48 hours. Wednesday night: Alberto Manguel delivers the 2007 Massey Lectures: The...

This Lydnam Lodge was a folly and could never pay for itself. "Every egg cost a dollar," said Grandmother Morgan; but the Lodge wa...

"Walk into a good second-hand book shop , and there's an interesting selection made by a person, not a committee." "It...

It's taken almost 5 years, but she's finally bigger than the cat. The cat is not particularly enamored of this turn of events, but h...

(In which the verb "to feel" is used to excess.) Aurgh. This happens every so often: so much to say, no time to say it. All these ...

Doris Lessing is a favourite of mine, and today she won the Nobel prize for literature . The veteran US literary critic Harold Bloom has so ...

"I say without hesitation and without excuse that this is a turning point in history. Never has the threat of Soviet Communism been so ...

WireTap — still funny.