Size Does Matter

What’s the largest your personal library has ever been? What’s the greatest number of books you’ve ever owned at one time? (Estimates are fine.) Is your collection NOW the biggest it’s ever been? Or have you down-sized? What’s the fewest number of books you’ve ever owned (not counting your pre-reading years)? My current book collection [...]

[381] Saturday – Ian McEwan

” It troubles him to consider the powerful currents and dine-tuning that alter fates, the close and distant influences; the accidents of character and circumstance that cause one young woman in Paris to be packing her weekend bag with the bound proof of her first volume of poems before catching the train to a welcoming [...]

The Cause

Have you ever read a book that inspired you to take up a cause? What book was it, and what is/was the cause? No. I am not ambitious in this magnitude and I doubt I’ll ever be taking up a cause because of a book, since I mostly read fiction. If a cause ever exists, [...]

[380] Skippy Dies: A Novel – Paul Murray

” A pale fellow of slight build, he looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth; in his file, however, you will find Attitudinal Problems, Inattention, Disruptive Tendencies, Vomiting in Class and Playing Frisbee Alone. Trouble comes in every shape and size . . . ” (409) Packed with sci-fi endeavors, juvenile escapades, religious hypocrisy [...]

The Remains of the Days

Admission to Musée de l’Orangerie is included in the ticket to Musée d’Orsay. I could visit Musée de l’Orangerie at my own pace since I’ve purchased a week pass. It is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Though most famous for being the permanent [...]

Monet au musée d’Orsay

The two days at Musée d’Orsay were spent looking at Monet’s paintings (also looked at Renoir, Pisarro, Morisot, Degas and Guillaumin). Photos were prohibited inside the galleries—so I had to rely on the the official museum literature and publications for pictures. I highlight some of my favorite Monets. On the first national holiday, Monet walked [...]

The Left Bank, Paris

My last trip to Paris was mostly devoted to Musée du Louvre that it left very little time to explore the Left Bank. The only sight that which I afforded a closer look was St-Germain-des-Prés. Built to house a relic of the True Cross brought from Spain in 542, this church was so powerful in [...]

[379] A Gate at the Stairs – Lorrie Moore

” Life was unendurable, and yet everywhere it was endured. ” (VI 303) A Gate at the Stairs sets in a small town in the midwest, where Tessie Keltjin comes to attend college. The culture shock that confronts the 20-year-old country farm girl, who has neither had Chinese food nor flown in an airplane, is [...]

Le vrai Café de Flore – The Real Café Flore

In my long, lingering walk through the Left Bank, beginning at Pont des Arts and finishing at Luxembourg Garden, other than the staid and awe-evoking St. Germain des Prés and St. Sulpice made even more famous by Da Vinci Code, one of the highlights for me, indubitably, is Café de Flore. Sitting at the corner [...]

Tie-In

Do you like movies made from books? Which ones do you think have been done well—kept mostly to the plot of the book, etc? I like movie tie-in but have mixed feelings about them because I am usually preoccupied with my visions of the book, especially the ones I love. While the potential can be [...]