Neither David or Merrily won in their categories. In fiction Dimitri Nazralla won for Niko (Véhicule Press) while Joel Yanofsky won in non-fiction for Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism (Viking Canada). Both sound good: must read them.
Continue readingAuthor: Mary Soderstrom
Recreating Eden: QWF Awards Tonight: Michel Freitag’s Book to Be Launched
Tonight is a big literary night. It’s the Quebec Writers’ Federation annual awards gala, and my good friends David Homel and Merrily Weisbord are up for prizes. Thank goodness they’re contestants in different categories –David for Midway in fiction, and Merrily for The Love Queen of Malabar in non-fiction–or I’d
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Getting the User to Pay: Toll Roads Aren’t That Awful, Poll Says
A Canada-wide poll commissioned by the CBC shows that Canadians are not averse to letting the user pay when it comes to roads and bridges. More than three-quarters of those questioned in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto said okay to tolls on new highway construction, with Montrealers being more in favour
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Denser Development, Less Reliance on Cars
This is a good traffic day in Montreal, where the problems of urban sprawl are considerablly less than in many other North American cities and where public transit ridership is growing fast. Nevertheless, the Metropolitan Montreal Community reports that urban sprawl is perceived as a real threat by people who
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Didn’t See Any Snow Before My Birthday, But There Were Flurries Before the Party
Last week I posted about how for the first time since we came to Montreal there were no snow flakes before my birthday, November 8. A couple of people reported that they’d seen a few flurries which made me feel slightly better about global warning. And I’m happy to report
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Attention Must Be Paid to Writers–on Front Pages, if Not Ground Floors
There are times when a writer feels absolutely second rate, completely forgotten, totally unnecessary in the scheme of most of society. But then something comes along that amazing evidence that somebody cares a lot. That happened Tuesday when Le Devoir invited a couple of dozen of Quebec writers to write
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Writing the Back Story: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea
Last month we talked about Jane Eyre at the Atwater Library, and tonight it will Jean Rhys’s idea of why the first Mrs. Rochester went mad, Wide Sargasso Sea. Both books are great reads, and in their own way both are comments on the life of the time in which
Continue readingRecreating Eden: We Walked and Walked…Montreal in the 1950s
Open File has a lovely story about a young immigrant from Germany, Alfred Bohn. who took many pictures of Montreal after he and his wife immigrated in the 1950s. Check it out. A hatmaker by trade, he says he, his wife and two other couples who lived c…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Book Groups This Week: The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa
I’m expecting fascinating discussions this weeks as two of the book groups I lead will be talking about Mario Vargas Llosa’s historical novel about Paul Gauguin and his grand mother, the French-Peruvian proto-feminist Flora Trístan, The Way to Paradis…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Thinking of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Geometry
Perhaps my favourite photographer is Henri Cartier-Bresson. On a trip to France a few years ago we spent two afternoons in a restrospective exhibition of his work at the Biblithèque nationale. It was literally an eye-opener, as not only were great pri…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Deep Integration Is Not the Way to Go: The Economic Pitfalls of Common Currencies (to Say Nothing about the Cultural Fallout)
Memo to Stephen Harper and others who’d like to integrate the US and Canada: it’s not the welfare state that causes problems, it’s the inability to manage your economy independently.Today in The New York Times Paul Krugman says about the Euro crisis: “…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Music for a Rainy Day: Debussy’s Jardins sous la pluie
It is a wet day with rain soaking the fallen leaves. Perfect for listening to Debussy’s Estampes, a charming piece of music.The heroine of my novel River Music, I’m discovering, is one of the greatest interpreters of Debussy’s piano music in the mid t…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Too Much Success? Nope, Just a Reason to Put More Money in Transit
More and more people in the Montreal region are using public transit, a report by the group Transit says. In 2006, Quebec set out to increase use of public transit by 8 per cent in six years. The good news is that that goal has been surpassed everywh…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Climate Change: a Personal View
Today is my birthday and for the first time since we came to Montreal decades ago, no snow has fallen so far this season. Every other year there have been at least a few flakes by now, even though rare has been the birthday when we had to wade throug…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the NDP: a Forum
Here’s an invitation that may be just what you wanted!You would like to know more about the history of the NDP and its record as a force for change in Canada? You would like the chance to discuss the issues currently being defended by the NDP team of …
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Why It Matters That the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer
Paul Krugman has it right again: “…extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as t…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Dawn Redwood in the Cemetery
The redwoods and giant Sequoias of California were the mythic trees of my youth. Both the variety that grows in the Sierra Nevada and the one native to the coastal ranges were awe-inspiring, while walks in the groves were they grow remain exceedingly …
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Jeanne’s Favourite Picture: On Kids and Dogs and Population Control
Le Devoir columnist Josée Blanchette has a piece today about dogs and what a pain they are. Jeanne, who can not read of course, was taken by it nevertheless. The pictures of the dogs enchanted her. The one she liked the best is of the dog in a s…
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The Burning Bushes: Fall Lingers on
This morning I had an appointment on the other side of the mountain, so I walked across through Mount Royal Park. We didn’t get the snow storm that whipped the Northeast US into submission, and the leaves are lingering on the trees. The yellows and o…
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