For a 14-year-old book, The Dirt on Clean has remarkable staying power. Shepherd, a site about books, asked me to write about the best books I read while researching and writing this history of washing our bodies. It was fun reconnecting with these excellent works. Visit Shepherd.com to read about the books I picked and …
Katherine’s big news is the publication this summer of her second novel, Her Turn. HarperCollins is publishing it in the U.S. and Knopf in Canada. It’s a contemporary story set in Washington, D.C., about a newspaper editor whose life is up-ended when her ex-husband’s second wife submits an article to her.
Join us on Thursday, August 12, 2021 at 7:30 pm and watch Katherine Ashenburg live at Prosserman JCC, as she shares her creative process and how she went about writing Her Turn. Moderated by Globe and Mail columnist, Elizabeth Renzetti.
Katherine Ashenburg joins Judith Pereira from the Globe and Mail in conversation about Her Turn, on Tuesday, August 3, 2021, at 7:00 pm ET. Click on “Read more” below to register for this Zoom event.
Until last spring, I hadn’t been on a bicycle for 34 years. So, when my daughter invited me on a family biking trip in Denmark, I can’t say I leaped at the chance. I’m 74, my shoulder was broken in a fall last year and my idea of a great holiday involves art galleries and restaurants, not biking 30 kilometres a day through forests, beaches and fishing villages. On the other hand, what an unrivalled opportunity to spend a different kind of time with my grandchildren as well as with my own body.
Every Christmas Eve, we eat cheese soufflé, tomatoes provençale and green beans in front of the fire. Here’s why.
Picture yourself finding a novel somewhere with its cover torn off and no identifying marks. It is slim, told in the present tense and in the first person, and beautifully written. The protagonist is solitary, with a longing for love that is rarely satisfied. At the same time, nature provides a powerful solace, as does the protagonist’s work, which is detailed, out of the mainstream, and intensely involving.
When my older daughter announced in the spring that I would be “doing English” remotely with my grandchildren every weekday, I thought she was joking. It wasn’t that I minimized her problem: schools had closed in the U.K. at the end of March, and she and her husband had to work from home in a London apartment they share with their three children.
Katherine’s big news is the publication in two countries of her second novel, Her Turn. HarperCollins is publishing it in the U.S. and Knopf in Canada, both on July 6, 2021. It is very different from Sofie & Cecilia — Her Turn is a contemporary story set in Washington, D.C. about a newspaper editor whose life is up-ended when her ex-husband’s second wife …
Let me put my cards on the table: The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, is one of my all-time favourite books. Years ago, I read The Last Leopard, David Gilmour’s biography of Lampedusa, and the details of his uneventful life remain vivid in my memory. Now comes Steven Price’s new novel, Lampedusa, shortlisted for this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. As I began reading it, I realized chances were strong that I was either Price’s ideal reader or very much the opposite.