launching a Bowl of Light

After dillying and dallying around about a book I've decided to just go ahead and publish it on my own. So, it's an e-book, called Bowl of Light, and it will be available through Kindle Books on Amazon.com in the next few days.

I'm quite happy with this book, which is a collection of essays, most of which began their lives as blog posts. The book is a whole nother kettle of fish from the blog. The strengths of a blog come from its immediacy and the sense that every day offers some surprising new variable. The strengths of a book come from a greater sense of coherence and maybe a greater reflective quality. Also, just as a music video may take away from the experience of a song by limiting the hearer's imagination, a blog's images can sometimes diminish the imaginative power of the written word.

On the home front, I think our grieving over the island is drawing to a close. I find that my gratitude for the experience has begun to outweigh my sadness over its loss. And here in Montreal, the epic struggle between light and darkness appears to have been decided in favour of light, once again. It's still cold, but the days are getting longer.