We learn the most about a person by how they respond to a crisis. Israeli film director Guy Nattiv’s movie on Golda Meir focuses on just three weeks in the life and times of Israel’s first female prime minister. Through the lens of the Yom Kippur War, we see Meir at both her toughest and also at her most vulnerable.…
Christopher Adam Posts
Sarah Miles is a saint. She’s also an adulterer who labels herself “a bitch and a fake.” Graham Greene’s 1951 novel The End of the Affair, narrated in the first-person, tells the story of how Sarah’s embittered and fanatically envious ex-lover pursues her following the end of their romance. That plot provides the opening for Greene to explore the themes…
Oregon-based author Alton Spencer sent me a copy of his ruminative novel The Relaxists in exchange for a book review on this site. I recall a time in the nineties, in my teenage years, when I was enlivened by the breadth of knowledge in the world — particularly the overwhelming richness of human civilization’s cultural and literary history. There was so…
Graham Greene referred to his 1955 novella Loser Takes All as a “frivolity.” Yet that shouldn’t lead any reader to think that this book is throwaway pulp fiction. The story of a couple vacationing in Monte Carlo may be light-hearted fare, but the writing includes Greene’s celebrated, signature style: sharp dialogue, economical and precise language that paints a vivid picture,…
This cheeky British film — billed as a thriller — is in fact part mystery, part drama. It’s a slow burn set during the doldrums of summer and on the leafy grounds of an English country estate owned by a revered and secretive novelist. The story is told mostly from the point-of-view of the young, fledgling author and private tutor…
It might seem counterintuitive to describe Dr. Mark Freestone’s book exploring psychopathy as a breezy read, yet that’s exactly what it was. That’s also why I found it this summer amongst the modest selection of books for purchase at London’s overcrowded Stansted Airport, catering to travellers seeking something comfortable enough to read while crammed into the narrow, hard seats of…
This past Sunday, I toured places in Ottawa I wouldn’t otherwise visit — thanks to Doors Open Ottawa. The event included free and open access to 89 different buildings and landmarks in the city. Ottawa’s staggering geographic footprint (2,800 square kilometres!) meant that I had to choose five locations. These ended up being the Jami Omar Mosque, the Dormition of…
In this scene from Margaret Laurence’s novel The Stone Angel, the elderly Hagar Shipley has escaped from her son Marvin’s house, in order to avoid being placed in a nursing home. She finds refuge in an abandoned building in the forest, along the coast. She has nothing but rainwater to drink until a stranger appears — Murray Ferney Lees. Hagar…
This is an audio recorded reading from Chapter 1 of the 1930 novel Vile Bodies. In this scene, passengers are travelling on a ship across the English Channel from France to Dover, England. At the heart of the humorous scene is a sly Jesuit, Father Rothschild, and the entrepreneurial evangelist Mrs. Melrose Ape, along with her troupe of young women…
This is an audio recording of a scene from Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood. Hazel Motes, a tormented and blinded preacher of the fledgling “Church Without Christ” is persistently haunted by that “ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind” — a figure he tries to escape, yet can’t. In this scene Hazel Motes…