 Red Room Writer Profile
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Gina Collia-Suzuki's Blog
November 7, 2009
- I first came across Arthur Probsthain, Oriental & African bookseller, in 1986. I was in London to visit the British Museum for the first time, and I was sixteen years old. It was a rainy day - somehow London always seems more Londony when it rains - and my heart gave a little flutter when I first spotted the bookshop's hanging sign. I was obsessed with Japanese prints, but no local bookstores ...
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November 6, 2009
- I was quite taken aback by myself today. Ever since my books first came out, I've been so busy working on other projects that I haven't really had much time to sit back and take in what's been going on around me. The books have had great reviews, and I've been very happy about that, in the few seconds before falling asleep when I had a quiet moment to think about something other than my next ...
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October 28, 2009
- Anyone who's read any of my previous blog posts knows that I am not a floaty, fluffy, 'it's all sunshine and moonbeams' kinda gal when it comes to this writing malarkey... I'm a realist. I'm all for realism. What I'm not a great fan of is scaremongering codswallop. So, the publishing industry's going through changes... has that never happened before? Book sales are down and, apparently, the end ...
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October 25, 2009
- The Rare and Unusual Varieties department of the Sea View Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association has today announced that a new variety of turnip has finally been grown that is fit to carry the Benjamin Arnold Guppy name - the Brassica Benjamina Guppicus. The new variety is slightly larger than other turnips, with incredibly dense foliage, and it boasts the unusual ability to throw itself over ...
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October 17, 2009
- "Are your books doing as well as you hoped they would?" I have been asked this question so many times, and I haven't once been able to answer it. I have no answer. In order for my books to do as well as I hoped, I'd have had to hope in the first place. I was told by a very dear friend, when I was sixteen years old, that there's no money to be made in writing about art. He'd been doing ...
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October 13, 2009
- On the subject of food again, I don't often talk about the fact that I'm a vegetarian. When the subject does come up, I'm usually asked how I came to be a veggie, and my answer is always the same... 'I once murdered a chicken.'The roots of my vegetarianism lie in the year 1972, in a village in southern Italy. I am half Italian (Calabrese to be exact), and my grandmother had a farm (like Old ...
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October 9, 2009
- The illness that resulted in my brush with death in 2007, being somewhat mysterious (as I couldn't possibly fall prey to a boring and predictable one), resulted in me developing various unusual food allergies, cutting down the number of foods I was able to eat without breaking out or choking to death to about three. It's amazing just how boring, not to mention frustrating, mealtimes can become ...
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September 25, 2009
- Sold at a recent Sotheby's auction for a whopping great big £2.36, and now in the hands of a private collector. Reproduced here for the first time, I give you two more lost poems by the late Benjamin Arnold Guppy.'Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me'Why hast thou forsaken me,When I love you oh so much,How I long to feel you close to me,To tremble at your touch.Nights spent alone,Without you snuggled up to ...
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September 25, 2009
- A number of Ukiyo-e series depict men and women going about their daily business throughout the twelve hours of the day. During the Edo period (1603 - 1868), the Japanese clock was divided into twelve units of time, or ‘hours’, with each one named after one of the zodiacal symbols of the lunar calendar, and with the day being divided up into six daytime hours and six night-time hours. ...
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September 25, 2009
- Yesterday, my husband and I drove up to Oxford, the city famous for its spires... and academics who rig examination results for wealthy diplomats and then murder those who find out about it (yes, I do watch too much 'Inspector Morse'). The purpose of the visit was to add another Utamaro print to my collection, courtesy of Bonhams. The lot, advertised as 'after Utamaro' but a genuine Utamaro from ...
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September 22, 2009
- I was in Birmingham last Saturday, signing copies of 'The Wonderful Demise of Benjamin Arnold Guppy' at Borders in the Bull Ring. The signing was a special one for two reasons. Firstly, I was born and brought up in Birmingham, so going back was like going home. I've moved around a fair bit and currently live in Weston-super-Mare, but Birmingham will always occupy a special place in my heart. It's ...
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August 29, 2009
- Yesterday, following the shoe incident, we headed off towards Boulevard Saint-Germain, stopping off at Notre Dame along the way, partly because we always pop in there (with me being a bit of an architecture nut) and partly because it was so hot that we feared we might be roasted alive where we stood if we stayed outdoors. My photographs can't convey the scale of the cathedral's interior... it's ...
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August 28, 2009
- We were just about to hop on the metro to head off to Notre Dame when all of a sudden my shoe exploded. Well, perhaps it didn't explode exactly, but it most certainly self-destructed. I have never seen a shoe fall apart in such a dramatic fashion... and it certainly isn't something I'd have expected from a Hush Puppy. The lower sole broke into two pieces, the upper sole came away from it, and ...
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August 27, 2009
- Although we've been coming to Lille for a decade, we've never actually been during the summer, usually choosing to visit in December when the Christmas market is here, along with the Ferris wheel, decorations, and the festive music ringing out across the Grande Place. Whatever the season, Lille is always an excellent place to do a spot of shopping. Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Kenzo, and a multitude ...
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August 25, 2009
- I spent most of today at the Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire in Brussels, looking at more than five hundred Japanese woodblock prints by Kitagawa Utamaro. The museum houses approximately 6,550 Ukiyo-e prints and an additional one thousand book illustrations by various artists, including some remarkable Harunobu designs that have retained their glorious colours. I would have liked to see every ...
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