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Showing posts from August, 2019

Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway by James Plath: book review

Historic Photos of Ernest Hemingway (2009) was written after the author’s 1998 book, Remembering Ernest Hemingway. This book is full of photographs—black and white—of American author Ernest Hemingway, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. Hemingway (1899-1961) was not just an author. He was a war correspondent, journalist, traveller and adventurer, fisherman, game hunter, and socialite.  Plath has access to photographs from libraries, museums, and Ernest Hemingway’s relatives. The photographs show Hemingway from childhood to adult, with family and with friends, in the presence of celebrities and in times of solitude, with his wives and with his sons, at work and at pleasure, at locations around the world, and at sleep. Accompanying the photos is a biographical account of his life. The book is in four parts: Part 1 – From Oak Park to Paris (1899-1925); Part 2 – Writing and Other Adventures (1926-1938); Part 3 – One Hundred Percent Papa (1939-1951); and Part

Vincent Van Gogh in Paris

Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890) painted three portraits of his paint supplier, Julien Tanguy (1825-1894). One of the portraits is ‘Père Tanguy’ (1887), which French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) bought. In the portrait bought by Rodin, Tanguy is shown wearing Breton clothes and sitting in front of a wall with Japanese prints. The bright colours, flat perspective, and treatment of light are characteristic of Van Gogh, whom Rodin viewed as ‘an admirable demolisher of academic formulae.’ The other painting shown here is ‘The Harvesters’ (1888).  Both paintings were bought by Rodin in 1916.  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).

The water bottle

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).

Notre Dame exposed: renovations continue in August 2019

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).

Gardening in the Jardin du Luxembourg, 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).

Baby blue lambs

Two of the photographed Blue Sheep lambs are one month old, born between 4-17 July 2019. The third lamb is 4 days old born on 12 August 2019. They were all born at the Paris Zoo.  The Blue Sheep ( Pseudois nayaur ) is also called the Bharal or the Himalayan Blue Sheep. 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).

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper: book review

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood (2008) is the memoir of New York Times journalist Helene Cooper and her home country of Liberia. Part 1 is set in Liberia, West Africa, from 1976 to 1980, and Part 2 is set in America from 1980 to 2003. Born in Liberia, Helene is a ‘Congo’ from the country’s wealthy elite, whose heritage dates back to the free people from New York to Monrovia in 1820. She grew up in a large house at Sugar Beach with her parents, sister Marlene, and friend-sister Eunice. By 1979, ‘four percent of the population (the Congos) owned sixty percent of the wealth.’ The ‘Country’ people were ‘agitating for change’ after 150 years of one-party rule—the True Whig Party of old-guard Congos. Helene was 14 years old when her family fled Liberia one month after the violent coup of May 16, 1980. They arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee, and she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina a year later when her parents separated. She lived with her

Sunday Walk: a walk with trees

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).