February 2008

Posted February 26, 2008

Manola Follana's got it all figured out. Rich designer, perfect life, just hit forty. Then his doctor drops the news - he's got "the" Disease. The one nobody wants to name. So Manola starts hunting for which of his many conquests gave him this unwanted gift...

Posted February 24, 2008

Now that I finally have a real kitchen - functional, equipped, the whole deal - I'm out of excuses. Time to actually learn how to cook. I'm constantly hunting for recipes that are both simple and interesting enough to impress...

Posted February 21, 2008

19th century London. Benjamin Barker's living the dream - successful barber, gorgeous wife, beautiful little daughter. Then the evil Judge Turpin decides he wants the wife for himself and ships Benjamin off to prison on bogus charges...

Posted February 19, 2008

Somewhere on Sardinia's wild coast, Madame runs a small guest house. She refuses to sell to developers who want to turn the scrubland into a vacation resort. Her neighbors think she's completely insane...

Posted February 17, 2008

Margaret Lea grew up in her father's bookshop specializing in rare and second-hand volumes. She built her entire existence around books. Now she's a biographer focused on 19th century authors. So she's pretty shocked when...

Posted February 16, 2008

"Doctor Clifton came to see me. He examined me and asked a ton of questions. 'Insomnia? Irregular sleep? Nightmares?' I nodded yes three times. 'Just as I suspected.' He took out a thermometer and asked me to..."

Posted February 13, 2008

Ferdinando Camon is an Italian writer who calls himself a "proletarian writer." Here he proposes to chronicle his seven-year analysis. But it's not really his analysis - it's an analysis. The narrative isn't quite what you expect...

Posted February 11, 2008

Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian lives in the States, born to an Armenian father and American mother. Since her parents' divorce, she's been torn between two cultures - especially since her mom remarried a Turk (hereditary enemy of Armenians)...

Posted February 10, 2008

Two or three months ago, one of the blank walls of a neighboring building got covered in scaffolding. Common sight in Paris, where the Malraux law requires facade restoration every ten years. A few weeks later, the scaffolding came down...

Posted February 9, 2008

I've got a special fondness for this Shakespeare play ever since I saw Franco Zeffirelli's film version with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Always felt a kinship with this particular shrew...