Edward O'Connor – Writer, editor, part-time birder
What I’m Reading Further Notes on The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James: The Opening Idyll Of all the ways to begin a novel, one of the most dependable is with an epigram. Perhaps the most famous example is the first sentence from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged … Read more
What I’m Reading There is a strangely melancholy scene early in this novel, when the heroine, a young American named Isabel Archer, is staying at an English country estate. Late one afternoon, she hears music coming from the drawing-room; someone is playing Beethoven on the piano. Isabel enters the room and sees that the player … Read more
What I’m Reading I have been ordering books from Librairie Gallimard in Montreal for about ten years. My last order consisted of the books shown in the photograph. I list them below with brief comments, and will return to each as I finish reading it. Three novels and one biography, or, I should say, a … Read more
What I’m Reading Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (1937) An account in diary format of a trip through Persia (Iran) and Afghanistan that Byron made in 1933, primarily to examine the architecture of medieval monuments and places of worship. I found enthusiastic references to this author and his works in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s The … Read more
The last sentence in Shelley’s A Defense of Poetry is the only one most people remember: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” But the argument that precedes this statement is even more provocative than its conclusion. Shelley argues that poets have always had a tangible effect on the laws that govern human societies … Read more
Am I the only one who still remembers and esteems this album? I bought my copy at Spec’s Music store in Miami the year it was released. I was fourteen years old and listened to the LP so many times that I wore down the grooves on the vinyl, and the record snapped, crackled, and … Read more
It started with a scream. I was walking down the dirt path that surrounds a pond on the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto. To my right were stands of weeds and wildflowers, and to my left the pond, which was covered with lilypads. At the end of summer, the path was dry and dusty. I … Read more
“Let’s face it, pictures of birds are boring.” Or so said the American author and devout birder Jonathan Rosen in one of the many articles he has published in the New York Times. Some of us would disagree with such a blanket statement. We find pictures of birds, whether they be paintings or photographs, quite … Read more
At first glance, the adverb may not seem like the most fascinating subject under the sun. In fact, this part of speech has sparked many passionate debates among editors, writers, and those of us who simply like to read. The current controversy is easy to summarize: Should writers avoid using the adverb entirely, or should … Read more
At the end of July, my wife and I left Toronto to spend a week in a cottage on Manitoulin Island. The largest fresh-water island in the world stretches across the top of Lake Huron for 160 kilometers (100 miles). It takes the better part of seven hours to drive there from Toronto, so I … Read more