Winding Up the Week #469

An end of week recap “Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot.” – Margot Datz A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids Thank you so much to everyone who wished my wife’s mum well. Sadly, she passed away last Sunday. It is Europe Day today, an occasion when cultural organisations promote literature in translation, multilingual reading and EU‑funded literary programmes (in addition, of course, to much else), while around the world people are observing Read in the Bathtub Day. We’re into the final two days of Children’s Book Week in the United States this weekend and, while not a literary celebration but one close to my heart is Mother Ocean Day on Sunday. Our literary births of the day include Hungarian poet János Batsányi (1763), Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860), English novelist Richard Adams (1920), American…