Sadhu Binning’s No More Watnu Dur

I’ve just finished reading Sadhu Binning’s book of poetry, No More Watnu Dur (watno dur is Punjabi for “far away from the mother land”), written in memory of the Indian passengers (British subjects all) of…

View Post

Un-common scents

Under “sentences that make you go ‘huh,’ ” read this passage from Chandler Burr’s explanation (in The Perfect Scent, which I also wrote about here) of how junior perfumers learn to put molecules together to…

View Post

More mysteries

Lee Child’s are not the only mysteries I’ve read lately. I’ve also worked my way through Stephen Booth’s The Dead Place, Quintin Jardine’s Autographs in the Rain, and Val McDermid’s Beneath the Bleeding, all of…

View Post

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher

Having just come back from a few days in Toronto, I was primed to appreciate this, from Lee Child’s Without Fail: Every city has a cusp, where the good part of town turns bad. Washingon…

View Post

Richard Zimler’s The Last Kabbalist in Lisbon

This past spring, in preparation for our trip to Lisbon, I read two novels set in that city, Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon and Robert Wilson’s A Small Death in Lisbon, which between them…

View Post

Copyright

Unless otherwise stated, all words and photographs in this blog are my own. If you wish to use any of them, please give me credit for my work. And it should go without saying, but apparently needs to be said: Do not publish entire posts as your own. I will take the necessary action to stop such theft. Thanks.