Rebuilt from the rubble: Italy’s 6th century Montecassino Abbey
A Sunday morning in February, I found myself in Cassino, a small city south of Rome at the edge of the Lazio region. This outing, like so many others of its kind, was for a running race of my youngest son. It’s a pretty long trip from Rome to Cassino, but the February day was…
Read MoreWriters: Finish your work!
Enjoyed a column in the latest issue of The Writer, in which television screenwriter and playwright Norman Barasch offered authors some valuable advice: “The most important thing about writing is to make sure – once you’ve started a project – don’t stop in the middle if you can help it. Just get to the end,…
Read MoreEarly morning jogging … in Oslo
I’ve written a few times how much I enjoy jogging mornings when I’m travelling. I’ve already written about early morning jogging in New York, Durres, Albania, Agadir, Morocco, Vitorchiano, Italy and the Bahamas. I had the nice chance to enjoy it again on a recent visit – to Oslo, Norway. I was (extremely) lucky with…
Read MoreDiscovering Norwegian stories
I love the idea of learning about new authors and new novels while traveling. On a recent trip to Norway, a visit to a bookshop and a chat with the women working there left me the new owner of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. It’s been years since I’ve read the Norse legends. To be precise,…
Read MoreSella ronda – a 42 km ski loop in the Dolomites
Ever since I returned from my ski holiday I’ve been waxing poetic about these beautiful mountains in northern Italy. I’ve already written about skiing in the Dolomites and the base we loved in Selva di Val Gardena. This week I’m going to write about a trail – the Sella ronda, that will get you to many…
Read MoreMy to-read list has just lengthened – the Bailey’s Prize Longlist is out!
I’m always thrilled for the announcement of the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Every year, the Bailey’s Prize recognizes the best fiction of the year penned by women authors. You may ask yourself, Why a separate list for women? Some feel women are not yet equitably represented on the lists of other major literary prizes.…
Read MoreA skier’s paradise: Selva di Val Gardena, Italy
I already wrote about skiing in the spectacular Dolomite Mountains (Dolomiti) in last week’s post. This week, I’d like to concentrate on the little town of Selva di Val Gardena, which we used as our home base during our week-long skiing holiday. Selva – or its German name of Wolkenstein or the slightly tweaked Sëlva…
Read MoreBook review: Cold Comfort Farm
I can’t believe I didn’t discover this brilliant comic novel by Stella Gibbons, first published in 1932, a bit earlier. A friend of mine was reading this and telling me about it, and I recalled the film version I’d seen and enjoyed quite a years ago – without having realized the film had been based…
Read MoreSkiing in a winter wonderland: Italy’s Dolomites
My week skiing in northern Italy last month was a hard thing to leave. After all, we enjoyed seven days of sunshine and snow on the 1200 kilometers of trails that took us all over Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, exploring new valleys and slopes each day. The Dolomiti, the Dolomites, are a mountain range of the…
Read MoreBook Review: Germinal, Émile Zola
I don’t know how I’ve managed to wait so long to read one of Zola’s most famous works – and the thirteenth novel in his Rougon-Macquart series. Published in 1885 and set in 1866, this is the story of Etienne Lantier, whose inability to find a job as a mechanic leads him to take on horrendous,…
Read More