conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about York, Times, Coldest with the genre: Comics & Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'The Coldest Winter'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first five paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Coldest Winter
  For an instant he looked nettled as though he didn't like the idea of my interviewing other publishers. He sighed and looked at me directly. "Will you want coffee?" he asked. "It will be dreadful. I believe it's partly made with chicory."
  I TOOK THE TUBE TO WANDSWORTH. IT WAS THE WEEKEND SO I guessed Nan and Ted would be at home. When I arrived, Ted was kneeling on the floor of the open corridor to lay the last section of a miniature railroad track. He waved to me. "Watch your step!" he warned. At that moment Nan appeared, emerging from their flat carrying a steam locomotive. She placed it down on the track. Frances, and Martin whose birthday present the train was, came to stand in the doorway, their faces lightened and happy for the moment. They shivered in the cold air.
  Ted had found the imposing toy locomotive in a London junk shop and worked on it for weeks, restoring it to its original glory. It gleamed in the pale afternoon light, oiled and powerful-looking, small though it was. Now it emitted steam and a loud triumphant hoot. We all cheered and applauded as the locomotive went chugging down the tracks, its large side wheels turning.
  I parted from them. Their faces, as I imagined mine was, were softened with delight, with foolish, affectionate smiles—we were still imagining the train steaming on its way, moments free of the tensions that turn the wheels of daily life.
  I MADE MY WAY TO CHELSEA TO VISIT BENN AND CUMMINGS but they were not home; he had gone to Ireland again, and she was in a matinee performance of a West End play. Only the maid, who had served me the desiccated herring, came to the door.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I saw Marie once more. I pressed an envelope into her hands with its flap unsealed so she could see the corner of a zloty. She smiled, a ghost of worry lingering about her face as she thanked me.
  WHEN I LEFT WARSAW THE NEXT MORNING ON AN ARMY transport plane, I was reminded of the ship on which I had crossed the Atlantic nearly a year earlier and the narrow berths and hammocks most of us had slept in.
  There were still bucket seats along the aisle on the airplane, which gave it the drastic pared-down look of a machine for war. But there was a woman steward, an incongruity in that plane, like a hostess at a tea party in a bunker.
  As the plane took off, we passed close over a line of German prisoners of war, digging a trench that would become the foundation of a new airport terminal, the present one being a windowless shed.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last three paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Poor George • Desperate Characters • The Western Coast • The Widow's Children • A Servant's Tale • The God of Nightmares
  Maurice's Room • A Likely Place • How Many Miles to Babylon? • The Stone-Faced Boy • Good Ethan • Hungry Fred • Dear Prosper • Portrait of Ivan • Blowfish Live in the Sea • The Slave Dancer • A Place Apart • One-Eyed Cat • The Moonlight Man • Lily and the Lost Boy • The Village by the Sea • Monkey Island • Amzat and His Brothers • The Little Swineherd and Other Tales • Western Wind • The Eagle Kite • Radiance Descending
  Some of the chapters in this memoir have appeared elsewhere in slightly different form: "New York, New York" in Dissent; "After the Snow" in The Paris Review and Pequod; "Smile" in The Threepenny Review; "Children of the Tatras" in Clarion Books; "Perlita" in HRI Quarterly; and "Paris" in The Paris Review.