Clare Wald is a South African writer. She lives alone, with Marie, her ‘woman of business.’ Sam Leroux, an academic from an American university, has come to South Africa for a series of interviews with her, as he is Clare’s cautious choice as her authorized biographer. Clare is divorced; her son, Mark, is a lawyer… FULL STORY
About Alexandra Bowie
Alexandra Bowie is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer” by Susan Gubar
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. Indiana University English professor Susan Gubar did not quote Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Dirge Without… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Troubles” by J.G. Farrell
“Troubles” is JG Farrell’s long exploration, from the point of view of an English visitor, of Ireland in the years 1918-1921, immediately after the First World War and, perhaps more relevantly, shortly after the Easter Rising of 1916. “Troubles” won the Lost Man Booker Prize of 1970, and is the first published of J.G. Farrell’s… FULL STORY
NY Food Book Fair
The first New York Book Fair opened today at the brand-new Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, and continues tomorrow and Sunday. Programs over the weekend include lectures (Carolyn Steel, author of ‘Hungry City’) and panels with titles such as Food+Cooks+Books or Food+Porn (Gael Greene is on that panel). You can see the full program here. I… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club, “The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance” by Thomas McNamee
Craig Claiborne, who was born in 1920, took until he was nearly 40 to find himself. Born in Mississippi, he came of age just as the US was entering World War II, and served in the Navy in North Africa, Sicily, and the Pacific. After the war Claiborne moved first to Chicago, to work in… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Sacre Bleu” by Christopher Moore
In Paris, in the second half of the 19th century, the painters Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, the art dealer Theo van Gogh, and assorted others, among them the fictional baker and painter Lucien Lessard, try to track down someone they call the Colorman, who they fear… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Next to Love” by Ellen Feldman
The title of Ellen Feldman’s novel is ascribed to Eric Partridge, the British lexicographer, who, as a young recruit, wrote of “war, which, next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination.” In the novel, Babe Huggins works for Western Union, snipping lines of telegram tape as they chug from the receiver, then gluing them… FULL STORY
NY Transit Museum Problem Solvers Program Wednesday, April 25
The NY Transit Museum will host blogger Ben Kabak discussing real-time bus tracking for New York City buses with Michael Frumin, systems engineering manager at the MTA. The discussion will revolve around the use of technology and whether the new systems will transform NYC bus usage trends. Doors open at 6:00 pm, and the program… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” by Deborah Moggach
Until I came across a copy in the local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, I had no idea that “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” now a Major Motion Picture starring a slew of great British actors, started life as a book. But indeed it did, in 2004, and the book has just been reissued… FULL STORY
Shuttle Enterprise and 747 flyby Friday, April 27
UPDATE, April 25: The flyby has now been scheduled from Friday, April 27, from 9:30-11:30. Exact route and timing depend on the weather, but the flight is expected to go by the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid. UPDATE, April 21: NASA has delayed the flight due the forecast of storms for Monday. We’ll keep… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh
‘Sea of Poppies’ is the first book in Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Ibis Trilogy.’ In this historical novel, set in 1838, Ghosh tells the intertwined story of Indians, Europeans, and Americans, all affected by the opium trade. First, there’s Deeti, who manages to farm a few acres, mostly dedicated to opium poppies, while her husband, an addict,… FULL STORY
Weekend Geological Walk from Proteus Gowanus
An Urban Geological Study of the Gowanus Sunday, April 15, 4:30-6:30 pm All ages are welcome We will meet at Proteus Gowanus before going out to explore. Perfect weather anticipated. Please be prompt! Geology is the the study of materials contained within the Earth and the processes by which they evolve. The Urban Geological… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Alice in Bed” by Cathleen Schine
“Alice in Bed” is one of Cathleen Schine’s early novels, having been published originally in 1983, and reissued in 2012 after the success of Schine’s 2010 novel “The Three Weissmans of Westport.” “Alice in Bed” tells the story of Alice, a college student who is, for some reason, unable to move her legs without pain,… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “Conundrum” by Jan Morris
A few weeks ago I reviewed Jan Morris’s novel “Hav.” Reading that book and her book about Sydney, Australia, made me more curious about Morris, one of the earliest and best-known personalities to undergo gender reassignment surgery. So I read her book “Conundrum,” published in 1974 (and reissued in 2002). “Conundrum” begins with a vignette… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “How It All Began” by Penelope Lively
A mugger pushes 70-something Charlotte, who teaches English to immigrants, over on the sidewalk, breaking her hip and setting off a chain of consequences in lives that should be unrelated. Charlotte’s married daughter, Rose, is unable to accompany her elderly employer, retired academic Lord Henry Peters, to a speech out of town, so his niece… FULL STORY
Mini-musical ‘Sharin’ a Ride’ at the Transit Museum over Spring Break
Looking for something to do with the kids over spring break? The Transit Museum will be presenting a 30-minute long, kid-friendly original musical, ‘Sharin’ a Ride,’ twice a day from April 10 through April 15 (show times are below). The musical, which knits together Earth Day and the transit system, make concepts like sustainability and… FULL STORY
Brooklyn Bugle Book Club: “The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My Grandfather’s Secret Past” by Martin Davidson
Many of the books about the Holocaust that have recently found their way to this household have described what happened to particular families after 1939 (“After Long Silence” by Helen Fremont), or about searches made long after the war to discover what happened to one’s family (“The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn, “Walking Since Daybreak” by… FULL STORY
Creativity has spilled forth from the classrooms of P.S. 8 and found its way onto the walls of the Urban Folk Art Gallery, thanks to the “How’s the Weather?” exhibition that features dozens of landscape paintings and drawings by first-grade students from the Brooklyn Heights elementary school. The group show marks the end of a… FULL STORY
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