I re-read Carol Shields when I want to find new layers to a familiar story. The Republic of Love lacks the gravitas of Shields’ more acclaimed novels, but it reinvents a basic love story with subtlety and wit. Familiarity underpins the lives of the interlinked characters, including the city, Winnipeg, which functions as both a ...
Esther Freud’s novel The Sea House describes the internal frustrations of Lily, a young Londoner re-evaluating her life while doing postgraduate research in a rented house by the ocean. As an examination of love and lovers, the novel, which encompasses the parallel story of the architect Lily is researching, failed to stir me. Lily is ...
So, we’re having this baby. It’s due in a few weeks and we’re trying to get organized with all...
I recently heard about what is claimed to be the rising phenomenon of Japanese men remaining virgins for longer...
Ladders. Patriarchal conspiracy. I’ll explain… This week I climbed a ladder. I was trying to reach a loft space,...
Dear Madame X, My boyfriend needs to look at porn while we have sex. It bothers me because I...
Mrs. Dalloway is yet another feminist classic that I had to grow into. Wrapped up in Woolf’s instantly recognizable...
Last week saw a Big Thing come to our soggy little island. Well, it was a Big Thing for...
Last weekend I was entertaining a guest, you know, the sort I was planning to have lots and lots...
All little girls want to be princesses… right?! It’s bad enough that toy aisles are separated out by what...
