Author Archive
December 18, 2024In the autumn of 1984, my parents and I paid our first visit to Venice. They flew, and I joined them there, having gone happily astray on European trains in the preceding fortnight,...
July 18, 2024A trail of Reese’s Pieces. The decapitation of a giant snake. The noble face of Mr. Spock, his skin peeling off like bark from a tree. Police cars that hover above the streets....
July 3, 2024There are two ways of confronting the tensions that have seized hold of Europe in recent days and weeks. Two ways, that is, of trying to understand the fears (genuine or misplaced),...
May 23, 2024There are many reasons not to read a book. One, because you don’t want to. Two, because you started reading, crawled to page 17, and gave up. Three, because the idea of reading...
February 28, 2024It is almost two hundred years since the death of Lord Byron. He succumbed to a fever on April 19, 1824, in the town of Missolonghi, on the west coast of Greece, at the age of...
