Books and Authors
Life in Málaga—Thoughts from the balcony
Spring is here, the weather is warmer and the beach beckons, the tourists are filling the streets and restaurants, and the cockroaches are back. Not in our apartment just yet, but in the building entrance and only corpses have been sighted, always with a leg or tentacle dreamily waving in the air, a taunt to…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—All about books
It’s been a particularly literary and bookish month. La Feria de Libros Antiguos had a two-week run on Alameda Principal. Booksellers from various Andalucian cities displayed rare, used, and new books for sale. I wandered over every day to browse. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I wanted something to catch my eye, to…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—Namedropping, Boxing Day, and travel recap
I’m a name-dropper here in Málaga. A couple of months ago, I tagged along with my friend Fiona to a book discussion group where everyone described a book they’d read recently. The mention of one book generated mentions of others and at some point, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book The Sympathizer came up. It’s one of…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—Bilingual baby, books, and fall
It’s a walk in the park, a stride across an empty street, as easy and pure as a toddler pushing a toy stroller. It’s my granddaughter’s unconscious switching between Spanish and English. It’s what I envy and delight in as I continue my daily, ongoing, and never-ending Spanish acquisition process. Our daughter Natalie, who became…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—A Book, a Movie, a Friend, a Retreat
It’s the end of July and I’m posting this from northern Spain in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where the weather is cool and rainy—a nice change from the high temperatures in Málaga, where I spent afternoons indoors reading or writing, or in a movie theater sheltered from the heat. At the beginning of the…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—Birthday, Book Fair, and Pub Date
Birthday I turned seventy-two this month. It’s weird being an age that seemed light-years away when I was thirty, forty, even fifty. But here I am. Seventy-two years can seem like a long time. It can also seem like not enough time. Nothing is promised us in this life, but I can still want. More…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—Comings and Goings
People come, people go. So goes the line in the movie Grand Hotel. And so goes our lives. In Seattle, where I lived most of my adult years, I established friendships, some close, some casual. I saw some of those friends move to different cities, while new people came into my life as a result…
Read MoreLife in Málaga—Mostly about books
The Non-Book Stuff The big event in April was Semana Santa but having witnessed the spectacle up close the two previous years, I was happy to give it and the crowds a pass this time. The only procession I watched materialized at 3:30 in the morning a half-block from our apartment as I was awakened…
Read MoreLiving and Learning in Málaga, Year 2—Distractions and Illumination
First, the joy. The end of November is marked by the illumination of the luces de Navidad that span Calle Larios and other streets throughout the city. A light show with music happens three times a night until January 5. But the first part of November was anything but joy for me and nearly half…
Read MoreLiving and Learning in Málaga—Year 2, Book, Birthday, and Friend Magic
La Feria del Libro, Madrid Book lovers will agree that bookstores and booksellers are magical. Imagine that magic replicated in a book fair of 358 stalls stretching the length of a famous park in a city that is already magical for the writers that have scribbled novels and poems in its cafes. That is the…
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