a collection of short literary or philosophical extracts
Not all ideas fit neatly into the pages of a book. When I see, hear or read something that moves me—a news story, a snippet of conversation, a musical phrase, a storyline or cityscape—I capture the thoughts it provokes by jotting them down. From art and sports—whether Wimbledon or the World Cup—to politics, love and war, all topics have the potential to spark my imagination.
Yahya Sinwar was born in Khan Yunis refugee camp in 1962 to a family who fled from Ashkelon during the 1948 Palestine War. At the age of 27, Sinwar was given four life sentences by Israel for the...
“Not another museum!” my boys chimed in together. “It’s not a museum. It’s a modern-day cathedral, still being constructed. A masterpiece in the making,” I pleaded. It was a beautiful warm, sunny...
Years ago, I attended a meeting held by The Forum Group. Their pitch was directed at those dissatisfied with their lives. For $600, you were promised a course that would turn your life around. The...
“Where are we?” Laura asked. “I don’t know,” I answered in bewilderment. “But you booked the trip, remember? Our hotel was supposed to be overlooking the Bund and the Oriental Pearl Tower.” “Well, I...
Calgary was booming. Collins Barrow, Accountants were desperately short of team leaders. Being of British heritage, the firm decided to recruit from England. They handed the task over to Pat...
The Rock Hotel balanced itself precariously on its perch halfway up a hill, on Europa Road, as narrow as an alleyway. Its squat, sparkling-white structure sprawled across the hillside exuding an...
“What do you mean you detected a fraud at the hotel?” the senior partner of Collins Barrow, Chartered Accountants of Calgary, Canada exclaimed incredulously. “We’ve never found a whiff in 20 years.”...
The 2 essential lessons I’ve learned in life (and please don’t tell my wife) are: You cannot be an accountant if you can’t add. The difficulty of getting fired. On a cold, rainy January morning I...
As my family negotiated the narrow, winding street, well before reaching our destination, we could hear the tumult ahead. It led us to a square overwhelmed with sightseers. This could have been any...
I quickly learned the art of self-deprecatory humour in my pre-teens. Thrown into an all-white, uneducated, low-income housing estate outside London, I was the only coloured inhabitant. Love playing...
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Emil Rem, an eccentric accountant becomes a writer of eccentric characters, in exotic locales—each chapter taking us on a trip into his fascinating twisted world. Born to a close knit, middle class Muslim East Indian family in Dar-es-Salam, Africa in the 50’s, he is then moved to Maidenhead England at the age of five. The next twenty years are spent shuttling between England and East Africa, wearing a St. Christopher’s cross one minute and attending church, to wearing a green armband and attending Muslim religious classes in Africa the next. Moving to Canada, marrying a woman from the Philippines and having two boys only adds further texture to his stories.
We would love to send you the complete chapter from our upcoming book The Vanished Gardens of Cordova. Sign up and I will send you the chapter entitled Cathedral in the Dark along with its beautiful illustrations.