“Sometimes it has seemed to me that life is a series of punishments for such moments of unawareness, that one forges one’s own destiny by what one doesn’t notice or feel compassion for; that what you don’t know and don’t make the effort to understand will become the very thing you are forced into knowledge... Continue Reading →
A room in the house, İstanbul in the roomA mirror in the room, İstanbul in the mirrorThe man lit his cigarette, an İstanbul smokeThe woman opened her purse, İstanbul in the purseThe child cast a fishing line, I saw,And he started to draw it, İstanbul on the lineWhat kind of water is this, what kind... Continue Reading →
This will be my first 'bookstore' review! Well, not so much of a review because I'm totally biased when it comes to bookstores! I visited 'Word on the Water' last Sunday, and it was just the perfect sunny day for my first visit. The bookstore is a boat floating on Regent's canal. It has a... Continue Reading →
“As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there's no point complaining that it's a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is 'taking the piss'.” Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London I was given the... Continue Reading →
“Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.”Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude This book. I will definitely judge... Continue Reading →
Story One: 'Terrific Mother' by Lorrie Moore ‘Terrific Mother’ is my first Lorrie Moore. I know she is much praised here so when I saw this Faber mini book I thought why not? Adrienne is 35 years old and childless. The best compliment a woman can get is ‘you’d make a terrific mother’ when they... Continue Reading →
People had been telling me how beautiful Oxford was and now I will keep telling people how beautiful Oxford is. We simply fell in love with the city. We had Italian food in a castle that used to be a prison. Then a long walk around the Christ Church and enjoying the meadow and the... Continue Reading →
“I was not the woman who breaks into pieces under the blows of abandonment and absence, who goes mad, who dies. Only a few fragments had splintered off, for the rest I was well. I was whole, whole I would remain. To those who hurt me, I react giving back in kind. I am the... Continue Reading →
‘Her vanity had been stunned by the way in which her book had been received. No trumpets had come thrusting out from behind the clouds, proclaiming ‘genius’ and ‘masterpiece’. For a long time nothing at all happened, and then, slowly, the abuse and sarcasm had begun. The very passages which she had been most proud,... Continue Reading →
