Category Books
Visit to the London Art Fair
The London Art Fair happened this week literally across the street from where I live. That, plus the free tickets that the gallerist around the corner sent me, seemed like a sign that universe wanted me to go. Held inside a massive Victorian agricultural hall, the venue was enormous and, on preview night on Tuesday, […]
That extra hour
One of my favourite days of the year: when summer time ends and we’re back on standard. Because I never bother to check the date in advance, it’s always a surprise. I wake up at the ordinary hour and discover that it’s actually an hour earlier. That blessed miracle of an extra hour in the […]
Lungs and late at the Tate
Sometimes a play’s title sheds light on what’s to come. Sometimes it doesn’t. Last week I saw a play that fell into the latter category: Lungs, at the Old Vic. I still have no idea why it’s called Lungs. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it! Ninety minutes of Matt Smith and Claire Foy […]
Gravestones and Jeeves in Stoke Newington
The middle weekend of February. The second of three weekends that I set aside to do my U.S. taxes. Ugh. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still do something interesting! I spent all morning figuring out the accounts for my house in Seattle, which I’m renting through Airbnb (surprise: it’s making money), and then hopped […]
Those ancient Anglo-Saxons made some lovely books…
After spending most of December away from London — galavanting to such exotic locales as Sydney, New York, and… Luxembourg — I figured I ought to start the New Year off with a good grounding in my Anglo-Saxon roots. The British Library obligingly put on an extraordinary exhibition of Anglo-Saxon literature. In this case “literature” […]
Birthday weekend
I’m not normally a big birthday celebrator, but it just so happened that some of the things I really wanted to do were best done this weekend — so I made a birthday treat of it. First thing was to get up early and open a little wrapped package that had been hiding in my […]
Getting to Seoul (and what we ate)
It’s one thing to stay up till 2am packing for a trip — what with the caffeine, the excitement, and the indecision over whether to pack all four pairs of shorts and two pairs of jeans, you declare that sleep is overrated and you’ll have plenty of time for that on the plane. It’s another […]
Six-week-old Seattlite
Six weeks, folks. I realized this morning that it has been six weeks since I got to Seattle. When I thought about the things I’ve learned and done since then, the number “six” seemed both too long and too short, and I wondered, “Am I developing properly? Am I ahead of the curve, or developmentally […]
Theatre season begins!
I can’t believe it’s already that time of year again: the air is cooler, the days noticeably shorter, my weekend evenings suddenly full of theatre dates. While I don’t love everything about fall (why can’t it just be warm all the time?), that last bit makes up for a lot. This theatre season got off to a […]
La fin (enfin!) des Miserables
So here I am, Thursday morning, sitting in my dentist’s waiting room, reading Les Miserables until they call my name, when — suddenly — I turn the page and discover . . . there were no more words! Nothing but snowy white blank pages until the editor’s notes began. After 1800 pages and six months […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 