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Lena Maria

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The first time I was introduced to tango was last year. Yokohama June 2023 with Soya. After all this dancing, we’d take the steep stairs to the rooftop for a break and fresh air. We’d crack open a window halfway up for a cigarette. Then back up to the rooftop with bad shoes and a soft midnight rain. We’d dance up there under the rain wet with dreams and is this real. When we’d be soaked we’d come back down to the lonely three elders and the bartender that looked like they were born in the building itself. We’d amuse them like animals at the zoo for a few songs, with our false steps and mixed of peanuts and wine.

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Currently fascinated by Being in the presence of Aizome 藍染め Being in the presence Of Tokushima's harvest, Awa Being in the presence of 800 years old of planting, and growing And thousands of hands at work Now only a hand full of hands Remains

Being in the presence of Fujie Moeno 藤江萌乃 And her blue hands that never wear

Moe萌 : a prayer that the grass grows Through life's dark and bright times A prayer destined for Persicaria tinctoria? A prayer destioned for Ai no ha

I don’t want gloves I don’t want gloves Are you sure? I can’t do gloves I couldn't do otherwise But dip my thirsty hands in The darkest of the blues Kachiiro 褐色 No I am no samurai But I am deserving of Kachiiro 褐色 Or was it the darkest of greens Or was it green giving breath to blue I don't know But I want to do it all over again

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What do I matter to the fishes

Currently fascinated by Marcel. And his marine biologist sweetheart. Darkened beady eyes. He was on a road. An outfit or two. A saxophone mainly. A few days here. And few days there. And then I don't know. We dove in. A sacrificial hip dive. Camera drowning in him. Him drowning in it. Returned home thinking. What do I matter to the fishes.

A song about the hardship at sea I can't remember But I brought Hag stones And manufactured in a fraction of minutes A necklace Good things can pass through a hole Evils are too big and get stuck in the middle The stones are said to find you You don’t find the stones

Ancient Rome in the ocean Wearing toga Romulus's favorite Modern toga Modern cheese cloth toga Suitable for such ceremonial occasions

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Don’t ask too much of this series of photographs. 

This is me in Rome, a few minutes drive from the  Colosseum.

Or was it in Athens. 

It’s blurry in my mind but I was definitely 19 years old, 9 years ago, traveling with Victoria, just her and I, the world was our oysters. We use to walk around at night pretending to speak gibberish and present ourselves as the Princess of Monaco. We’d invent a story tainted with royal blood and mannerism. Don’t ask me why we did this, we just loved playing roles and all.     

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non à commercialiser l’art

Aujourd’hui on m’a offert un local commercial à partager avec d’autre artistes en guise de magasin d’art collectif. 

Depuis deux semaines je répète le même modèle de tuile en argile qui a été apprécier par le public auparavant. Je refais des signets de cuire Tsundoku  積ん読 parce que j’ai tout vendu ma réserve.

Une réserve d’objets artisanaux, une réserve. 

Je calcule minitieusement le coût de mon matériel, j’additionne le nombre d’heures passé à faire un objet, me rends compte que charger par heure c’est impossible, donc je retourne au coût du matériel et le soustrais à un prix imaginaire pour que ce soit rentable. 

J’ai louer un four pour cuire une vingtaine de sculptures et d’objets utilitaires pour être prête pour avoir un nombre considérable de pièces à vendre pour le prochain marché artisanal. 

Le stresse monte en moi comme de la lave qui me suit dans les talons, je dois produire plus pour vendre plus, pour être une vraie de vraie artiste qui vit de son art. 

C’était ça le plan, vivre de mon art. Aujourd’hui je viens de débuzzer, de choisir autre chose, de réaliser que je n’est plus envie de commercialiser mon art. Lorsqu’un objet de départ est reproduit, il devient comme quelque chose de mécanique et la créativité se perd dans la répétition, dans le mouvement si bien déjà fréquenté.

Finalement, j’ouvre les yeux, cette chaîne de reproduction me tient à l’écart des projets qui me tiennent à coeur, les projets long dont je vais être fière. Les projets qui ne remènent rien monétairement. Mon film contemporain Yokobo****. Mon documentaire sur les migrants en nouvelle zélande. Le documentaire avec Félix sur le support sexuelle pour les personnes qui roulent au Québec. Mon roman. Mon livre-photo. 

Ça y est. Je vais supprimer mon compte Etsy. La prochaine fois que j’irai dans le studio de potterie, ce sera pour faire les cadeaux de Noel très en avance, et le cadeau de fête de Julia. Je n’imprime plus de postcards. Je ne me dépêche plus à faire une réserve d’objets énorme pour les marchés cet été. Je dois absoluement retourner vers le coeur, vers les élans artistique qui sont nécessaire pour la vie quotidienne. 

Je pense avoir trouver le nom de mon livre interdisciplinaire: S’éparpiller.

Je dois l’avoir terminé et imprimé d’ici un mois. À l’aide. 

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This is the third article of my monthly interviews with elderlies. Do elder lies? Don’t mind my bad word play.

Poised on the threshold of room 23, I looked at her silently while she scrutinized attentively the lines of a magazine in the comfort of her red leather throne. I took a gentle step in and she pierced her gaze on the other side of her glasses and uncrossed her legs. Uncrossed her nested legs under her long silky green skirt, a garden of embroidered roses. Kath's mother was a seamstress in Napier. From home, Kath watched her mother sketch, oscillate to pick materials and greet newcomers and familiar faces. The fascination over her mother's work transformed into a necessary fervor when she was at primary school. Mum would say: why don't you go outside and have some fun? I'd say: No, I want to keep watching. From bobbins to pedal, from mother to daughter, they took turns on the pleasant carousel of garment making marathons, the only sewing machine in the household: a classic black and gold Singer. Kath recalls a piece her mother fabricated and over wore around the house like it was the only piece she owned: a cream-colored evening frock. Tight at the waist and it flared out at the bottom. It was perfect for dancing and spinning fast until it depicted the shape of an umbrella. Once Kath moved out of her mother's house, her and her husband Robert inaugurated a roof of their own in Whanganui. She was employed for three years at a sewing factory. Biker's leather jacket was the first item to be repeated. One day, her boss saw her making clothes for her kids and asked if she could repeat the patterns for the company. She agreed and from that point on, she was consumed by stitching children's clothes. When the load of work became all too grueling, she walked out to pursue her own agenda and sturdily used her industrial Elna at own pace in the amenity of her home. Both her sons benefited the hours spent imagining and delineating garments. Systematically, they had home clothes and nice clothes. The distinction between the 2 was to be respected. The nice clothes with fancy threading on them couldn't be put in the washing machine. The home clothes were often made of recycled fabrics and used mercilessly to play in soddened soils. A smile of satisfaction escaped her lips every time they walked out the door wearing outfits tainted by her very own loving spirit. Her eyes grew bigger when remembering the blue suit she made for her blond haired and blue-eyed husband. She diligently labored the suit while he was absent from home. To hide it, a single sheet was wrapped over the pending ensemble. When his birthday came, the gift was unveiled. Robert was so pleased, he insisted to go out in public that night to wear it with a dignified posture. He took her to the Royal Whanganui Opera House. When the boys were kids, she once caught them secretly using her sewing machine in the kitchen. She smiled rejoicingly at the sight of the generational thread continuing to pass through the hands of her very own children. I asked about the last remaining piece pushed through her personal Elna, she pointed to her laps: the silky garden of embroidered roses wrapped around her legs which she still wore with such elegance.

[elisabethdenis]

This is the second article I wrote for my monthly interview with an elderly at my local rest home. The head lady of the journal publishing my series wrote back to me, right after sending this article:  My little bit of feedback for next time is to be mindful of the typical Chronicle reader and so perhaps more focus on the history of the interviewee rather than the more creative side of the writing. 

To be honest, I got upset. My writing style isn’t bendable. Rules sucks. Plain journalist writing makes me feel like I’m sitting in a metallic white clinical hospital drinking mediocre lukewarm water. I’m giving myself a gold star for saying no. Basically told her to discard of unwanted sentences in my articles.  

When I walked in room 5, he wore a red beanie. Jacques-Yves Cousteau inevitably came to my mind. A few days before meeting John, I watched The life aquatic with Steve Zissou, an homage to Cousteau by Wes Anderson. The protagonist embodying Cousteau wears a red beanie and never takes it off. It made sense once John took me on a mouthful voyage to his countless expeditions in the Cook Islands. The place he escaped to when he was too consumed by making pools waterproof and providing roofs over people's heads. John said the most important thing in life for him is to keep his brain active to live adequately for a long time. To feed his most complex organ, his three pound gelatinous mass, his infallible curiosity is always at his service. He spins any objects on all sides looking for the mechanical order of things. Cousteau was an oceanographer, a filmmaker, he co-invented the first open-circuit SCUBA set and brought to life the first underwater documentaries: he too, had a restless hunger for the fathomless fascination this world can offer. John kept on going back with his wife to the Cook Islands yearly, for 3 weeks each time with very little in his luggage. It helped him to remember the simplicity of life with small resources. He asked himself very often: why not London, France or America? Why do I keep on going back to the same place? He still doesn't have an answer, some sort of tropical magnet was pulling him back to the warm sea where dolphins popping out of the crystal-clear water to say hello wasn't an unusual performance. Sitting on the beach with a beer to sip on and carelessly float in the ocean circled by manta rays while his wife was drinking Bacardi lime lemonades wasn't sustainable for John. He had to find ways to build hardened layers of skin on his hands. To meet and help locals as a way of adding strings to his bow and deepen his cultural understanding of a place was his preferred way of travelling. Staying true to his desire, locals ended up inviting him to their farm where he volunteered each time he would visit. He helped with sheep, goats, the occasional cows, and tree cutting exercises. He recalled a big native tree on the farm where they shared meals under this massive dome of shade. The contrast of New-Zealand and the Cook Islands was inevitable: islanders think one day at the time whilst we plan moons and moons ahead. Paradoxically, while he was in New-Zealand, the islands were on his mind. While he was surrounded by ukuleles and wooden tokere-tangarongaro (slit drums), he looked forward to the eternal forests of Aotearoa. His souvenir tees are all worn-out and vanished over time. The only memorabilia remaining for him to look at, and plunge back to his multiple sky passage over the 15 islands, is a dried white starfish. Reflecting on John's story, I walked along Ngarunui beach, wrapped in my grey cashmere scarf and a black hood over my head. Each step was dictated by a tropical dream: hovering over 26°C see-through waters from an airplane window seat, butterflyfishes, damselfishes, groupers, blue starfishes, the crown-of-thorns starfishes... I looked down at my feet, at the small rock pools embedded on our local beach: 6 spiny starfishes.

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I recently started monthly writing articles for my local journal. Each month, I sit with a resident at the rest home and I depict on paper, a cherished part of their existence. Meet Joyce, the very first piece I wrote for the series. The second photo did not get published, I messed around with photoshop and turned her into a ghostly creature. I hope that’s not considered crossing boundaries. Are you smiling yet? 

When I entered room 23, the first thing I saw was the two bookshelves. An amalgam of tired pages: an encyclopedia of world poetry, a thick collection of Evergreen British history magazines, an old book about beauty and a handful of manuscripts connected by the correlating subject of the sea. All pages and covers showed signs of decades of use and the smell undeniably highlighted the same observation. My inspection stopped when I found what I was hoping for: the black and yellow book, staining my eyes for the second time. 2019 was the year Joyce turned 90 and the year I locked eyes with this specific book in her room. I was helping her to dress up, or to shower. I can’t remember exactly which task was executed but I was this thin-skinned health care assistant, waiting for her to finish some personal business. When I say thin-skinned, it has nothing to do with my physical body. In fact, I had extra loving handles back then due to the irresistible sweets constantly offered in the staff room. My skin was so slim and sensitive, the reality of old age would crawl under my peel in no time and I’d find myself being a puddle of water hiding in one of the numerous bathrooms. Dementia waking a man in the middle of the night, asking about his wife who’s long gone. A mouth refusing to eat because Death would come faster that way. A 100 year old lady asking me to cuddle her until she fell asleep because loneliness was too heavy to bear alone, and because the darkness of night was everything but reassuring. I would lay with her on her single bed, pink duvet all the way up to our eyes in the middle of winter, and I’d be wetting her short white hair salty in silence. Is this what it means to be old? Calling old names with only echoes bouncing back? Running in circles trying to remember blurry faces and unforgettable dates, wishing time would accelerate to be done with it? Or decelerate to dig up the things half remembered? I couldn’t bear the realness of aging on a daily basis, so I quit. 3 years later, I go back to the building. The same chef is still cooking with his good heart, and the mechanical order of things didn’t change: lunch is still served right after 12 and a tea trolley slides from room to room 3 times a day. Joyce is still here and the black and yellow book is still peacefully napping on her shelf. The Moth: a bunch of true short stories told by around the world writers. Joyce couldn’t remember me. But she remembered The Moth. She recalled her son gifting her the book when he came to visit in 2019 from England. The looking away through the window, the occasional hand hovering over her face, and the excessive apologies showed her embarrassment in not remembering those places of emotional significance. A string of photos pinned on a cork board beside her bed helped us investigate the order of her stories and untangle her timeline. She had colored pictures of a blue bus and black and white pictures of her wedding, lighthouses and boats. We figured the bus was the tail of her tales. Joyce got married to Teddy. After his service in the Navy in England, he eventually got a job as a lighthouse keeper in New-Zealand. He had to nurture lighthouses to ensure boats would find land again the same way moths are guided to the light. Whilst he daily recorded weather readings, maintained the mechanical equipment and bathed rotation mechanisms in mercury, Joyce homeschooled their 2 boys. During 12 years, they lived at 4 different stations in the country, and spent exactly 3 years at each station. The house was always a few meters away from the lighthouse, close enough to guard it. Despite working with mercury, she said the lighthouse effect didn’t get to Teddy’s head, he never turned out to be a mad hatter. When they lived on Stephens island, a boat drove them to the edge of the island and they were asked to step in a box that could fit 4 people including their luggage. A crane would lift the box up in the air all the way to the island. The cliffs all around the island made it impossible to get on it any other way. At times, the lifting mechanism wasn’t reliable, it would often leave them hanging between sea and land like a broken claw machine at the arcade. Eventually, it would stagger, they could breathe again, the box would land on the island, open up and make them feel on their very own little planet. Joyce’s favorite station was their very first one: Puysegur Point, at the bottom of the South island. She said it was a world of its own: the smell of the rough sea, foggy quiet afternoons where she would write and read all sorts, anything but romance novels. She could not glance at the overly exaggerated love depicted on the covers, it made her wince. She always loved receiving and sending hand-written letters, and let me tell you, she has a well-trained hand which achieves perfectly shaped cursive handwriting. After their lighthouse keeping saga, the children were old enough to get by on their own and the couple eventually bought Lizzy, a blue Bedford 1956, and lived in Northland for about 16 years with cats and dogs on board. But that’s another story. I left the room catching her ocean stained eyes with a gentle smile across my face. If only Joyce knew that I had received in my mailbox, on the very same morning, To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

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Un col victorien ceinture mon index gauche. Une autre époque s’obstine à briller, à titiller l’ombre d’un chemin illuminant d’anciennes virées menantes à de vieilles oubliettes déterrées. L’amulette conjure l’amnésie d’un amour chimère déformée. Troublé d’un éclat limpide, le train défraîchi, tout rouillé, tout rouillé, repart à la case départ: l’Inde.

Ensardinés en croisère ferroviaire entre peaux humides, bambins attachants: rentrant, sortant, gueulant, trébuchant, trimballant des poches de riz, des poches de yeux, des presque rien, dans les poches, mais tous, vraiment proche. 26 heures comme de la broche. C’était long comme Yonge Street. Il faisait chaud, je ne pouvais pas compter sur élaguer mon haut.

Après avoir rêvé, grouillé, glandé, suffoqué, juste comme ça, il s'est dépouillé, de son gré, l’a délaissé, glissé, à ma portée, égorgé, mon doigt de fée, d’un cercle, argenté. 

Depuis, nous avions anthropomorphisé l’anneau: nos lèvres s’étampaient sur le joujou, au coeur de chaque On the bucket list type of miracles. Oh filière du passé, bouche de fantôme à raconter, moments imagés dans des pays derechef étrangers. Porteuse d’un amour aliéné, d’un donateur éclipsé. Maintenant, juste une bague perturbée, gardée, regardée, reregarder. Un souffle-mort-vivant. Fais-moi encore contempler, toutes ces couleurs fatiguées.

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Je suis partie de mon nid. J’ai passé 4 heures à me dire que la route aurait été préférable avec une copine avec qui chanter et se raconter des histoires les pieds pendant hors la fenêtre du côté passager. Un camion grumier a presque écrasé ma voiture. Je pensais que j’allais mourir pendant cette seconde et quart et j’étais en paix avec l’idée. 

Je me suis rendu, devant cette grande maison moderne aux couleurs brunes froide. La dame m’a ouvert, elle avait les sourcils plus foncés que ses cheveux. Elle m’a pris dans ses bras. Elle a un oiseau orange, il s’apelle Birdie. Elle boit son café à 8 am, 9:30am, 11am et 2:30am. Moi, je la suis pour celui de 9:30 et 11am. Tout lui rapelle son mari mort. Elle dit que c’est quelque chose avec quoi elle doit vivre, qui ne s’enlevera jamais de sa peau, pas comme un diachilon qui se décolle avec le temps et l’usure. Le rappel de son abscence est permanant. Elle dit en riant que ses amies sont un peu jeune qu’elle alors elle va attendre que une des ces femmes meurent et après elle va pouvoir se mettre en paire avec son mari. Elle dit: je voudrais juste trouver un ami, ou un amour, mais juste quelqu’un de vivace, qui veut encore faire mille choses, comme moi, qui a envie d’aller manger au restaurant ou prendre une marche. Juste quelqu’un, pour faire des choses. Mais bon, si ça ne vient pas, ça ne vient pas. Je suis chanceuse d’avoir un studio de potterie chez moi. C’est grâce à cela que je survis. Quand je ne sais plus quoi faire, je vais dans mon studio, et je finis toujours par faire quelque chose. Et je me perd dans ce que je fais. J’oublis tout, pour un instant, et ça fait du bien. Tu sais, je ne peux pas juste arrêter de respirer, il faut que je continue à vivre. 

On a trempé mes sous-vêtement pareillement à la production de moules de coulage et puis ils ont séchés au soleil. Ils dégoulinaient tendrement leurs liquide blanc sur le béton de la cour arrière. 

Les assiettes et les tasses sont toutes faites à la main, elles ont toutes un manteau différent. We both love our on ways, of cooking, of dressing up and down the table, we disagreed but then we agreed to disagree and we laughed. She tried to teach me how to cook corn in the microwave and I simply hated the thought. J’ai pris un bain dans une beignoire blanche clinique, tellement blanche que j’avais peur de la tâcher. J’ai lu Clarice Lispector et je me suis beignée dans ses mots. Je me sens seule. Je ne suis pas habitée de dormir seule. Je me retrouve, dans cette solutide de merde. 

[elisabethdenis]

29 of 100 days of productivity

I woke around 8 and stayed in bed for an hour, emerging my half-open eyes in Nigeria with the help of Purple Hibiscus. I read 75% of the book. Once I got up, I unrolled my yoga mat on the floor and stretched my body for 20 minutes while my cat was sitting on it... Cat must show their novelty status, what can I do. 

My coffee was drank cold, 1.5 hours after it was poured by my wonderful partner’s hands. These days, my mental health is quite low and I find myself eating more Vitamin C, Zinc pills, Magnesium powder and Vitamin D. I push myself to swim in the cold ocean every second day or so. It relaxes my mind and studies have shown that the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids in seawater produce antibiotic and antibacterial effects that promote immunity. 

I still worry very much about my visa status in New-Zealand despite truly knowing that life will be beautiful anywhere. The life I’ve built here in the past 4 years is now in the hands of some blindfolded immigration officers that has never met me. My mantra is: let it come. Let life come to you. I’m not starving. I’m not being tortured physically, I’m not taken as an hostage, I’m not going through civil wars, I wake daily in the loving arms of my partner, my family support and love me, I am financially free, I grow a garden that feeds me, I own things I can play with, I live a minute away from the sea. I started preparing for plan B just in case, decluttering and selling a few of my things. 

I have written about 12 000 words for my manuscript so far. My goal is to reach 30 000 by the end of this month. I can do this!!! 

I decided not to attend the past two online creative workshops (this week and last week) in the framework of the regional creative program I enrolled in because my mental health is quite low and its all very overwhelming for now. They are being recorded which allows me to watch them later. 

Other than that, I planted watermelon, rocket melon, coriander, pumpkins and lettuce. Watermelon is my favorite thing to watch growing... It is so cute when it’s small. And the bigger it gets, the more you want to eat it. You only get about 2 out of a plant... When you eat them, its a celebration, its sacred, its precious.

My partner and I have been walking almost daily on the beach: finding rocks, spiderwebs, a plastic star and a single sock. 

After 2 months of waiting, I finally received my tiny pocket book Regard sur le Japon. Which translate to something like: A look at Japan. It is a pocket book that explores garments, traditions, gestures, language, rituals, tea, objects... In Japan. The illustrations are so cute, it’s perfect! 

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I told Miyazaki I love the “gratuitous motion” in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.

“We have a word for that in Japanese,” he said. “It’s called ma. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.”

Is that like the “pillow words” that separate phrases in Japanese poetry?

“I don’t think it’s like the pillow word.” He clapped his hands three or four times. “The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness, But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.”

Which helps explain why Miyazaki’s films are more absorbing and involving than the frantic cheerful action in a lot of American animation. I asked him to explain that a little more.

“The people who make the movies are scared of silence, so they want to paper and plaster it over,” he said. “They’re worried that the audience will get bored. They might go up and get some popcorn.

But just because it’s 80 percent intense all the time doesn’t mean the kids are going to bless you with their concentration. What really matters is the underlying emotions–that you never let go of those.

— Roger Ebert in conversation with Hayao Miyazaki

[elisabethdenis]

25 of 100 days of productivity

Wow. I suck at keeping my page updated with my fruitfulness activities and my ticked to-do-lists. 

Since September 2021, once a week, I twist my French tongue in the hope it morphs into a Catalan one. My friend Amir (Ecuadorian) and I are exchanging teaching sessions once a week, every Thursday. We’re still going, although we sometimes cancel them if either of us feel low on energy. Our weekly class seemed to lack the writing aspect of a learning a language and hearing it, as we mainly speak to each other in English, the language where we can both meet in the middle. When I posted on the community board of the town where I live hoping to put my hand on second-hand textbooks and perhaps some CD’s, they both fell into my hands. On top of that, a man wrote to me saying he would love to practice hi rusty Spanish with me around a cup of coffee. We met up at a café and spoke what I could as well as drank a strong coffee. He let me borrow his dictionary, yippi! The best part of my Spanish mission is the discman that was given to me. The other lady from the community board who has Spanish Cd’s for me, gave me her old dinosaur discman! It took me back to the early 2000 when I used to own one... I’d listen to Steve Miller Band, and a lot of CD’s I’d make on my computer, from songs downloaded from LIMEWIRE. OMG. Any of you used these? 

I finished reading ‘Small country’ from Gael Faye which broke my heart into pieces... It took me to Rwanda and Burundi and left me floating for days in the Malagarasi River. I’m still reading ‘Purple Hibiscus’ from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which helps me while I’m writing about Nigeria because that book is set there too. It’s also very intimidating to write about a country which Chimamanda describes so well... 

My first manuscript is slowly taking life., 8500 words so far. I managed to write a resume of the book and a short resume for each of the 4 stories.

I’ve checked in with my creative mentor and were wrote down key actions for the month of November: 

1. Write 20000 words

2. Create my art project: Walk the walk with me to me

3. Pin a weekly day to continue my pottery practice and see it as a ‘self-care’ activity. A therapy. 

Much more has happened but it’s almost midnight, my cat is purring and my eyelids are transforming into anchors. I’ll try to write more in the upcoming days. 

[elisabethdenis]

To continue on yesterday’s vein, here’s my eternally stretching books-that-moved-me list:

1. Silences - Gilles Vigneault

2. Strange Pilgrims - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3. Je viens d’ailleurs - Chahdortt Djavann

4. Franz Kafka - Letters to Felice

5. A personal matter - Kenzaburo Oe

6. Tranformation - Joyce Tenneson (photography)

7. Grapefruit - Yoko Ono (a book of instruction)

8.Can you ever forgive me? - Lee Israel

9. Cesare Pavese - The business of living (diaries 1935-1950)

10. Letters to father - Franz Kafka

11. The diaries of Franz Kafka

12. Letters to Milena - Franz Kafka

13. Ashes and snow Book No.1 - Gregory Colbert (photography)

14. Norwegian Woods - Haruki Murakami

15. Just kids - Patti Smith

16. Silk - Alessandro Baricco

17. The unknown craftsman: a Japanese insight into beauty -  Yanagi Sōetsu

18. Americanah -  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

19. Small country -  Gaël Faye

20. Deep water - Patricia Highsmith

21. La bulle d’encre - Suzanne Jacob

22. The writing life - Annie Dillard

23. A field guide to getting lost - Rebecca Solnit

24. Teaching on love - Thich Nhat Hanh

25, The stranger in the woods - Michael Finkel

26. The trial - Franz Kafka 

27. The dinner - Herman Koch

28. In Cold blood - Truman Capote 

29. In the country of last things - Paul Auster

30. The bell jar - Sylvia Plath

31. She’s come undone - Wally Lamb

32. The catcher in the rye - J.D Salinger

33. Amititau! Parlons-nous! - Laure Morali

34. Document 1 - François Blais

35. Demian - Herman Hesse 

36. All these wonders - The moth

37. Cave in the snow - Vicki Mackenzee

Yes, this is me, in a tree, with Gilles Vigneault resting in my hand.

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