March 2016

Myriam opens a restaurant. Sounds ordinary, right? Wrong. Nothing about Myriam is ordinary. Before this, she cooked for a circus. For her, cooking isn't just a job—it's expression. Joy, rage, desire, all of it goes into the food. Every dish tells you something about her state of mind.

We've all noticed: blogs are multiplying like rabbits. Managing your reading list is becoming a nightmare. Solution? RSS feeds. What the hell is that? Feeds let you track new posts without visiting every single blog. You need an aggregator—a tool that collects everything in one place. Trust me, it'll change how you read online.

Was it a mistake to click "I accept" when that message popped up saying I'd been selected for V2? But I was too excited about accessing this famous V2 everyone kept talking about... And now I see it! Right here, right now as I write this. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

First off, I didn't visit this fair like a professional. So for real coverage with photos that make you feel like you were there, check out Tamara's blog. I showed up at Porte de Versailles around 11:30. The place was already packed. Overwhelming in the best way—rows of books as far as you can see.

Katell tagged me for this, so here are my answers. Four books from childhood: The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton, the Alice series by Caroline Quine, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and one book that scared me senseless but I can't remember the title. Classic childhood reading amnesia.

1988. Scott, an American photographer living in Denmark, travels to Bucharest. There he meets Elena, a young Romanian desperate to escape her grim destiny. He offers marriage—a ticket out. Then Scott falls in love. But does Elena? Grondahl knows how to write about the spaces between people.

Rose Meadows grew up with a father who was a cheat, a liar, borderline con artist. He left her with crippling self-doubt and one old children's book. Armed with this pathetic inheritance (plus an unlimited love for Jane Austen), Rose navigates life. Ozick writes about failure and survival with brutal honesty.

Two stories in this slim book with its disturbing title. Both about death. Both left me equally confused. In the first, a sixteen-year-old girl has just died. But what happens next is stranger than death itself. Yoshimura doesn't explain—he just shows you the unsettling truth.

This week, Christian Sauvage, publisher of Light the Cat, wrote about the literary blogosphere on his site. Specifically about us amateur readers. If you love Nordic literature, you'll dig Michel's blog. He knows his stuff and doesn't waste words. Direct recommendations, no fluff.

Playing along after Bouquin, Jules, Cuné, Cathulu, Valdebaz and Katell. This morning I saw: on the bus, an old red-haired woman dressed entirely in green reading Freud's Delusions and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva. In front of the Panthéon, two students arguing about Sartre. Life as a series of literary snapshots.