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A Real Spy Story
It happened 80 years ago this very weekend. Faithful readers will know that, although my regular focus on this blog site is books, I’m also a fan of film noir, especially from its heyday in the 1940’s and 1950’s. So when I recently came across a movie of this genre and one with a Canadian… Read more
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It All Started Here: “Beware The Cat”
The year 1553 in merry old England was not a great time to have strong religious beliefs, either Catholic or Protestant. Succession crises were the order of the day. On July 6 of that year, following the death of King Edward VI, a staunch Protestant, the line of succession was altered to maintain Protestant rule… Read more
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Spring Clean-Up
Every April, our municipal government provides all households receiving curbside collection services with a “large item pick-up”, allowing up to four large items to be removed for free. It used to be called the annual Spring Clean-Up. Now let me tell you, this is one invaluable service. In suburbia, in an era of over-consumption and… Read more
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On Another Matter
Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually focus my attention on either books or art, or even better, something that combines the two: illustrated books, for example, especially ones dealing with children’s fairy tales. And, for me, winning the trifecta would be an illustrated book about book illustration! But that is not… Read more
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In Praise of W.W. Norton
Some months back, I told you about a recent find at my neighbourhood Little Library. I’d come across a copy of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, comprising 140 stories by 116 authors. It was the Seventh Edition of the publication, a weighty one, published in 2006. Chronologically, the first story offered in it is… Read more
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Anthropomorphism: You’re Writing About What?
More than once I’ve been asked why I chose to write in the fantasy genre, specifically using anthropomorphized animals. I’ve posted before about the subject, the origins of this kind of literature, my childhood influences and how animals display a range of moral behavior (see posts of Aug. 26, 2020, Sept. 9, 2020 and July… Read more
