book reviews, opinions and fun by Norm Sigurdson
Canadian cartoonist and graphic novelist Seth was born on this day in 1962 as Gregory Gallant in Clinton, Ontario. He has been producing cartoons and comic work for years, but I really only started to pay attention to him recently. I have to admit that although I love cartoons I'm not terribly up on graphic …
Continue reading "Today in Literary History – September 16, 1962 – graphic novelist Seth is born"
"Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces." -Henry David Thoreau
New People is the title of Danzy Senna's compulsively readable and occasionally surreal new novel about an upwardly mobile mixed race couple in New York. It is set in the early winter of 1996, when the dream of a "post-racial America" was still alive. It is also the title of a fictional documentary in the …
The September 15, 1915, issue of The Saturday Evening Post featured a comic short story by P.G. Wodehouse in which his two most famous characters, the dim-witted aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his preternaturally adaptable valet Jeeves made their first appearances. Well, yes and no. The story, Extricating Young Gussie, is narrated by a recognizable Bertie, …
James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist of the American frontier, died on this day in 1851. He was brought up on an estate in upper New York state, in what is now the village of Cooperstown, home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooper is most famous for his five-book cycle known as The Leatherstocking …
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." -William Arthur Ward
“Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The German-Italian novelist Italo Svevo died on this day in 1928. "Italo Svevo" was actually his pen name. His real name was Ettore Schmitz (known to his friends as Hector) and apart from his literary endeavours he was also, thanks to an advantageous and loving marriage to an heiress, a wealthy businessman. In late 1928, …
Continue reading "Today in Literary History – September 13, 1928 – the death of Italo Svevo"
Today is the anniversary if the birth of one of my all-time favourite writers, H.L. Mencken, born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 12, 1880. Mencken, known to his family and friends as Hank, was an incredibly prolific writer of books, essays, satirical pieces and newspaper columns. He wrote about social trends, politics, literature, music, philology, …
Continue reading "Today in Literary History – September 12, 1880 – the birth of H.L. Mencken"
Jesmyn Ward's powerful third novel Sing, Unburied, Sing is a harrowing look at life at the rock bottom of the American dream, permeated with poverty, racism, addiction and incarceration. In interviews Ward has said that she used William Faulkners' 1930 novel As I Lay Dying as a template, hoping to explore the dark side of …
Continue reading "Book Review- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward"
"He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being." -Paul Tillich
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of author and activist Jessica Mitford (known to family and friends as Decca) who was born on September 11, 1917. She was one of the six famous Mitford sisters - the others being Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity and Deborah. Diana and Unity were great supporters of the …
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” - Gustave Flaubert
Huey Long, nicknamed "The Kingfish," was the controversial governor of Louisiana and later a United States senator He was assassinated on September 10, 1935. He had announced his candidacy for the United States presidency just a month earlier. He was shot in the Capitol Building in Baton Rouge by Dr. Carl Weiss, the son-in-law of …
"A stiff apology is a second insult... The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt." -G. K. Chesterton
On September 9, 1910, Alice B. Toklas moved permanently into Gertrude Stein's apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus in the Montparnasse district of Paris. She would be Stein's lover, partner, household organizer, editor and muse until Stein's death in 1946. Together Stein and Toklas, both expatriate Americans, created a lively artistic and literary salon at …
Like a lot of Loudon Wainwright III's fans I have nurtured an uncomfortable love/hate relationship with both him and his music over many years and many records. I've been a fan since my late teens, over 40 years now. Some of his songs have really touched me and I have them burned into my memory. …
Continue reading "Book Review – LINER NOTES by LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III"
"When war comes, reason is regarded as treason." - I. F. Stone
Wallace Shawn considers himself lucky. He grew up in a wealthy, intellectual home ("full of ashtrays and bourbon") presided over by his father, legendary New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn. "People were paid to take care of me," he remembers. He went on to a good education, a career as a prize-winning playwright and an …
Continue reading "Book Review – Night Thoughts by Wallace Shawn"
William Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, died on September 7, 1601, at the age of 70, when Shakespeare was 37 and tasting success in London, having opened The Globe Theatre in 1599. John Shakespeare had a life of steady rise in fortune and social standing followed by a precipitous decline starting in the 1570s when William …
