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Showing posts from August, 2018

French sausages

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Paris Postcards by Guy Thomas Hibbert: book review

Paris Postcards: Short Stories (2018) is a collection of 11 short stories set in Paris, with the central theme: a postcard. Each postcard in each story has a message – for good or bad. The stories span from 1925 to the present day, in a snapshot of history. They are all linked in some way, through time or character or place – but in a subtle way.  From a Russian Count in 1925 to a middle-aged woman in the present day, the stories are of young and old, Parisienne and foreign, and rich and poor.  The collection begins with the mysterious Count Stanislaw Kerensky, exiled from Russia after the Revolution, leaving in receipt of the knowledge that his old comrade Petrovich is alive. Stanny promised to send his friend Andre a postcard with a coded message.  Hermione’s party in 1937, Lucienne in German Occupied Paris in 1943, Elodie and her son in 1963, Didier and Jules in 1997, Jeanne in 2000, Hank in 2006, and Li Ling and Christopher in the present day, it...

Napoleon raspberry - and snails

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Napoleon - in Lego

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Australian animals at the Paris Zoo

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Rainy morning

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke: book review

Letters to a Young Poet (1929, this edition 2013) is a series of 10 letters that German poet Rainer Maria Rilke  (1875-1926)  wrote to an aspiring young poet, between the years 1903-1908.  Rilke was in Paris from 1902, writing a book about the sculptor Auguste Rodin (who sculpted The Thinker and The Kiss).  Rilke was 27 years old when he responded to 19-year-old Franz Xaver Kappus who was asking for poetic guidance. Written to provide hope and inspiration, as well as his own insight of living in a harsh world, the letters continue to provide inspiration to all readers. Nine of the letters were written in the space of 18 months. The letters are long and cover techniques such as irony, alienation, futility, love, and consciousness pushed to the extreme … Accompanying the letters, at the end of the book, is a commentary on the letters, that enlighten readers on the historical context of the times. This thin book is contextually interesting as we...

The Catacombs, Paris

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).