Uplifting and yet tinged with a faint melancholy, Tove Jansson’s lovely comic books about the free-spirited Moomintrolls make me very happy. Drawn and Quarterly (D & Q) released The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip in gorgeous oversized hardcovers last fall, and reading them is sheer delight. There are times when you really need Jansson’s family […]
Tag Archives: reading
The Rabbi’s Cat 2
At last I have the sequel to Joann Sfar’s graphic novel, The Rabbi’s Cat. In his sequel, Sfar once again places his readers and his talking cat in the heart of the Jewish community in 1930’s Algeria. The cast of characters includes the rabbi, his footloose and mystical cousin Malka of the Lions, a suspected […]
Unstinting happiness: a reading by Mary Oliver
The world is glorious and holy, and that’s the first reason we should take care of it, not because we need it.—Mary Oliver On Sunday, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver shared her poetry at the State Theater in Minneapolis. She’s my favorite contemporary poet. Throughout the reading, I felt tremendous gratitude—both for her precise and […]
Laika
Nick Abadzis’ Laika is a fictionalized account of the short life and sad death of Laika, the Soviet space dog. Be forewarned: it’s a three-handkerchief, bucket-of-tears kind of novel. Laika’s story is one of loyalty and trust repaid with callous abandonment and deception, and the injustice of this tale resonates deeply. “Do not worry,” Laika […]
Rosie Cotton
I’m not usually one to dress up for Halloween, but this year I decided to go as one of my favorite female characters from The Lord of the Rings: Rosie Cotton. You’d think that Eowyn or Arwen would have been my choice for a Halloween character, but that would have been a little too obvious. […]
“Reader, I married him.”
I went to see Alan Stanford’s adaptation of Jane Eyre at the Guthrie Theater on Sunday night. I’m trying to remember the last time I was so deeply moved by a live performance, and I’m not able to come up with anything. Jane Eyre was just stunning. Having loved Jane Eyre for thirty years (and […]