Magnificent Octopus

La Science au service de la Fiction: Premier prototype d'écriture automatique avec images, typographies et pourcentages. Carte postale...

Local street art, on the wall of a used book shop.

For one and half school years, between sixth and seventh grade, Mevlut worried constantly about where to sit in the classroom. The inner tur...

When she sat back down at her table she found that a group of men dresses as condoms were staggering across St Helen's Square. They w...

Here the pavements were swarming with feet wearing shoes, boots, high boots, shoes with heels and shoes without, and some in sandals, which,...

Libraries sometimes happen in unexpected places, right when you need them. Last week I spent a night with my mother and my sister at Mark...

You may well doubt words themselves, but there is often no mistaking the tone of voice in which they are uttered. I had occasion recently to...

Remember your first kiss? Since then I have given and received many kisses, and God knows I have given and received them without participat...

It was with unreasonable joy that I discovered the latest IKEA catalogue in my mailbox the other week. My daughter and I made an event of it...

Great Canadian novelist, environmental activist, inventor, poet. Margaret Atwood is also a brewmaster. A colleague stumbled across some No...

I read Thomas Mann's Death in Venice in Venice recently, and it was a remarkably intense experience. I began reading en route from Fl...

Art heightens life. She gives deeper joy, she consumes more swiftly. She engraves adventures of the spirit and the mind in the faces of her ...

The Comfort of Strangers , by Ian McEwan, is a strange little novel, set in Venice. One of his early works. It's short, and nothing much...

I leave for Italy next week, and as such I've been reading all things Italian. Here are two guidebooks I recommend: Italy, Insight G...

We were packing our bags. There was nothing that they could say now. Now they were trying anything to make us stay. Like a lover who was try...

I started reading The Windup Girl some time ago, by Paolo Bacigalupi. It's slow going and fairly demanding reading, but in a rewarding ...

Two more days of school (sigh), but prom was Friday night.

Still reading, but in a pretty distracted way, and mostly just on my short commute. Vacation planning and house hunting, both of which are...

Having enjoyed Robin Sloan 's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore , I long ago subscribed to his newsletter. This week he tells of a ...

1.1 Satin Island , by Tom McCarthy, is one of my favourite books in recent history. 2.1 Some books I want to read cold. I don't want r...