Blog, Blogger, Paradise

The only blogging initiative I’ve taken lately has been to add the words blog, blogger and blogosphere to my spellchecker, and I only did that to facilitate my freelance translation work, which has been particularly challenging of late, because of a lack of time. I’ve been busy managing infectious disease—two cases of chicken pox, three cases of stomach flu, and one residual hacking cough (mine).

This weekend, in the name of health, I’ve decided to drop everything and abscond to Toronto, where the International Festival of Authors is in full swing. I have tickets to see Shalom Auslander (who might be familiar to some readers of this blog as “that Jewish guy...the one who lives in New York”) and A.L. Kennedy, whose second most recent novel, Paradise, I just bought today.

I went into the used bookstore around the corner from my house, and it was there, on prominent display, exactly the book I had been hoping to find so that I could take it with me on the train to Toronto. When I told the owner about this lucky coincidence, he said that he'd only just put the book on the shelf five minutes before.

I can only conclude that this bodes well for my trip. Now, to get rid of this cough…

p.s. I have a review of Marie-Claire Blais's Augustino and the Choir of Destruction in the Montreal Review of Books, which can be found locally as an insert in today's Globe of Mail.
p.p.s. I have a review of Maya Merrick's The Hole Show in tomorrow's Gazette. If I have time before leaving, I'll post a link.