My husband is Brazilian; he was born in Sao Paulo but moved to Texas when he was a pre-schooler and became a US citizen years before we got married. I’ve always found it ironic that my soul mate was born thousands of miles away from me but the houses we grew up in are walking distance from one another. Despite our long relationship and the extensive family he still has living down there I’ve never been. There are a few reasons for this: it is […]
The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived
I picked up this book in my ongoing love affair with fiction about the natural world. I also really enjoyed Patchett’s “Commonwealth” and I wanted to read more of her stuff. A little bit “Heart of Darkness” and a little bit “Poisonwood Bible“, Ann Patchett’s “A State of Wonder” explores maternal love, the big business of pharmacology and the ethics of interfering with indigenous people. There’s a lot going on in this book. When a letter arrives bearing the news that Dr. Anders Eckman has […]
We were such a fierce little tribe
My parents got divorced when I was 9. I was an only child but my father’s second wife had kids from a previous marriage. After their marriage, my father moved to the other side of the country. For me, that was a big culture shock and I was endlessly fascinated with the mechanics of sibling interactions. I had never had to “call” a seat for a car ride before. It was like I had landed on the moon for a month every summer. This was in […]
“She sang as if she was saving the life of every person in the room.”
Bel Canto opens at the birthday party of Japanese industrial titan Katsumi Hosokawa in the small, unnamed South American country that is trying to woo Mr. Hosokawa into building his next factory in their country. When Mr. Hosokawa declines the invitation, because he has no intentions of bringing his business there, the host country persuades famed opera soprano Roxanne Coss to sing at the party which in turn convinces opera fanatic Mr. Hosokawa to attend. Shortly after Roxanne Coss finishes her set the light goes out […]