Writing is a way of life, they say. I think it is good one. They also say that the life of the writer is lonely. For many writers, I’m sure that’s true. Not so much for me. I’ve been pecking away at the keyboard for some time now. But for the past five years I’ve been sharing a portion of my output on a monthly basis with a group of like-minded poets, novelists, and life writers. We read each other’s work. We offer comment and criticism. And we stoke the fire of enthusiasm.
Sharon Blomfield has written a lovely book about her encounters on the Greek island of Sifnos. It’s the kind of place you’ll want to visit immediately and return to as often as possible. Which she has. And each time her relationship with the locals, her knowledge of the island and its history, and her love of the place expands. I’ve been watching this book take shape over the past few years and am absolutely delighted that I’ve been able to purchase it today at my local independent book store, Words Worth Books.
It’s a beautifully produced publication. I’m looking forward to enjoying it all over again.
You can find out more about the book on Sharon’s website, and while there you might also want to visit her blog where her chronicles of life on this beautiful Greek isle continue.
On rereading Sense and Sensibility slowly and with immense pleasure, as befits this beautiful Belknap Press annotated edition edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks, I am awestruck by Austen’s maturity and delicacy in this her first published novel. The opening two chapters which set the scene with the death of Henry Dashwood and then set the plot ticking with the magnanimous ungenerosity of the sole heir, John Dashwood, toward his step-mother and his three step-sisters are so finely polished that you might imagine Austen writing and rewriting them for years on end. Indeed, much of the first volume is near this level of concentrated effort. The second volume, less so, and the third more sprawling still. But by then the reader hardly notices being so caught up in the all too real lives of Elinor and her sister, Marianne. And the horridness of John Dashwood and his wife is equalled, or possibly surpassed, by the self-serving self-love of the faithless Willoughby.