Tag Archives: ageing
Goodbye to All That and More
It might seem overly simplistic to say that I bought Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York because I was leaving Beijing and could not find an anthology of elegiac essays bidding farewell to this grimy city instead of its more famous counterpart across the Pacific Ocean, but it would be true […]
Lunchtime LM Montgomery: Jane of Lantern Hill
My favorite children’s book is Anne of Green Gables, hand’s down. I can’t remember when I first read it or how I came to possess the book. Presumably my mother bought it for me — I don’t think my pocket money stretched to books when I was under ten. Perhaps she bought it for me […]
On My Eternal Crush on Neil Gaiman. Also, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I think we all know how I feel about Neil Gaiman here. I’ve made my feelings quite clear. He writes his books longhand, responds to his Twitter and Tumblr fans (and in a real way, not some half-assed ‘my PR person made me write this’ way), has wildly curly hair and loves his dog (and […]
On The Cider House Rules and Nostalgic Recollections of My Adolescence
Good night, you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England. I’ve been reading The Cider House Rules. Or rather, re-reading it. Has this ever happened to you? You can’t remember actually reading a book, but as you read it becomes more and more familiar, as if this is a terrain you have crossed […]
In Which I Read and Drool and Contemplate My Increasing Age
The first time I went to Black Sesame Kitchen, a small private kitchen here in Beijing, I was extremely apprehensive. Oh, not about the food, which I had heard was scrumptious (people need to bring back this word and retire delicious) but because it was to be a communal dinner. Just me, my boyfriend and […]
Buried Beneath All The Lies 