What’s Great Literature? #2]
Sylvia Beach knew great literature! How wonderful for one of the twentieth century’s most famous authors to have met her in Paris that hot July day in 1920! She was the owner of a small English bookstore at 12 Rue Odéon, which was also a lending library and social gathering place for writers of the […]
The Ice House
THE ICE HOUSE By Mary E. Martin A short story just for you! “That’s an old photograph of me the summer I turned eight. Squinting at the camera, I look like I’m ready to run. You can’t see him but my brother, Paul, with dark […]
Walking to War
The end of the First World War and the end of the Second World War So many people were touched by the story Nineteen Seventeen which I posted on Facebook on Remembrance Day this year. So many of you were kind enough to share it. The story took place in a little town—Belleville, Ontario in […]
Remembrance Day, Nineteen Seventeen
A century has passed since the events in this story took place in a little town—Belleville, Ontario. It’s the way I like to remember wars—all wars on Remembrance Day. My father told us this story many times about his own father. It’s the best “anti-war” story I’ve ever heard. With great respect to all those […]
Are you with Picasso?
When the great artist, Picasso, creator of Guernica, first visited the caves at Lascaux in France to see the paintings of our ancestors, he said, “We have learned nothing in thirty thousand years.” What did he mean? Of course, he was astounded by the brilliant artistry, but he was also struck by humankind’s lack […]