Category: Uncategorized

I bought this book by mistake.

I thought it was a collection of essays about Salmon Rushdie’s terrific novel Midnight’s Children, one of my all-time favorites. Midnight’s Furies then sat on my TBR shelf for nearly five years. Five years is the maximum I allow. After that, it’s time to admit I’m just never going to read it and pass it along to a nearby free library.

Since I’m spending the month of December trying to read as many of these under-the-deadline books as I can, I finally read this one.

Turns out, Midnight’s Furies is a history of India’s Partition, the period just after independence when the country was divided into two nations which eventually became three: Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

There’s a good chance, if you’re and American reader like me, that you know very little about what actually happened. You probably know that it was a…

With the wool or other natural fibres spun into yarn in the first of these two articles, we move on to building that yarn into fabric, to assemble into clothing. As with spinning, there are several ancient associations with the craft of weaving.

Primary purpose

Elizabeth Nourse (1859–1938), Tennessee Woman (c 1885), oil on canvas, 94.6 x 64.8 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

Elizabeth Nourse’s portrait of a Tennessee Woman from about 1885 shows her weaving at a large loom, with her cat for company.

Paul Sérusier (1864–1927), Tapestry (Five Weavers) (1924), oil on canvas, dimensions and location not known. Image by Bastenbas, via Wikimedia Commons.

Paul Sérusier’s later paintings returned to styles more akin to those of the late Middle Ages. Tapestry (Five Weavers) from 1924 shows five women working on various stages of a tapestry, from winding the wool to hand-weaving. As none of the figures is holding…

I read a very enjoyable non-fiction book by Polly Barton, who is a translator of literature from Japanese, which was published by the wonderful Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021. Fitzcarraldo produce such beautiful books, that I’d be tempted to buy them for home decor reasons alone!

Fifty Sounds combines three of my interests: memoir, language acquisition and translation, so it was likely that I would enjoy it. The book is divided into 50 short chapters, each referencing one of fifty onomatopoeic Japanese phrases.

I attempted to learn Japanese for about six months from late last year, and my progress was so painfully slow that I jacked it in, despite the help of DuoLingo, plus a book-based course and eventually Zoom lessons with a professional. It’s so damn hard! So I’m awe-struck really that Polly Barton was able to hone her Japanese to such a high standard after starting to learn it…

A Ravilious Christmas

Christmas Card 1938. The Theatrical Costumer Shop lithograph from the book High Street.