Stephen Osborne plunges into the pedestrian flow and encounters panhandlers, magicians and a cyclist praying to a monument of Edward VII.
Mandelbrot
Private Parts
Mandelbrot reviews The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms by Bruce Dern.
Michael Hayward
Artists Behaving Badly
Michael Hayward reviews the honest, outrageous and at times unflattering biographies of Lucian Freud and Rockwell Kent.
Patty Osborne
Aging: Not For the Faint of Heart
"We don’t often get clear and honest reflections out of hundred-year-old men, which is why Frank White’s new book is such a great read."
Patty Osborne
Elizabeth Is Missing
"When your narrator has Alzheimer’s Disease, neither you nor she can be sure of the facts, which is what makes this such an intriguing story."
Stephen Osborne
Don't Look Back
Stephen Osborne reviews The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature by Franco Moretti.
Michał Kozłowski
Bukowski Effect
Michal Kozlowski reviews Stardust, Bruce Serafin's essay collection: "punchy narrative, little exposition, unburdened by political correctness."
Patty Osborne
Buffalo Gal
Patty Osborne reviews The Perimeter Dog by Julie Vandervoort.
Stephen Osborne
Marginal
Stephen Osborne finds a copy of Francoise Sagan's Those Without Shadows at the bus stop, complete with margin notes that create a new sort of text.
Bruce Serafin
Leetle Bateese
"Since Drummond is spectacularly out of date, why not discuss him?" Bruce Serafin looks at William Henry Drummond's place in the history of corny yet unforgettable Canadian poetry.
roni-simunovic
Out and About
Roni Simunovic reviews Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives by Nia King, a collection of interviews about gender and sexuality, and how to make art, make rent and survive.
Michael Hayward
To the Moomins! (And Beyond)
Michael Hayward reviews Moomin: The Deluxe Anniversary Edition by Tove Jansson, a collection of comic strips that contain "the poetry of our world: sad, joyful, dangerous, enchanting."
JILL MANDRAKE
Here Lies
Jill Mandrake reviews Local Customs by Audrey Thomas, a ghost story and murder mystery set in West Africa.
Lindsay Diehl
Honolulu
Lindsay Diehl encounters choppy waves, a beautiful man in a hot tub and a pendant shaped like a curved tongue on a trip to Hawaii.
Alberto Manguel
Fist
Alberto Manguel examines the rich symbology of the fist, a primal symbol of rebellion and grief, across cultures and history.
Patty Osborne
Saint Ralph
Patty Osborne reviews Saint Ralph, the uplifting but untrue story of a boy who sets out to win the 1954 Boston Marathon.
Derek Fairbridge
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
Derek Fairbridge reviews a documentary on the Canadian rock band Rush.
ANDREA BENNETT
Rockin' Through Ontario
andrea bennett suggests that Road Rocks Ontario, a poorly proofread guide to our middle province’s geologic wonders, has a five-star rating on Goodreads because "people who like rocks like them a whole lot."
Michał Kozłowski
Publishing Life
The zine scene—comics, wrestling, skateboarding and music.
Wilson MacDonald
Author Tour, 1923
The poet Wilson MacDonald reluctantly reveals secrets of literary success.
Daniel Francis
Acts of Resistance
"Resistance to wars is as much a Canadian tradition as fighting them." Daniel Francis discusses alternative histories, anti-draft demonstrations and the divisive nature of war.
Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail
What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.
Elevator Will Not Fall
Ludwig Wittgenstein instructs you on how to comport yourself in a stuck elevator.
Drunk, Armed With Guitar
"RCMP are responding to Canadian Tire for a report that a male is threatening staff with an axe he was trying to return" and other tweets from @ScanBC.
Phrase books are tools of cultural globalization—but they are also among its casualties.
Stephen Henighan
Collateral Damage
When building a nation, cultural riches can be lost.
Stephen Henighan
Transatlantic Fictions
Coming to harbour in a new world.
Alberto Manguel
Arms and Letters
Science and the arts fulfil their functions to help us survive through the imagination.
Stephen Henighan
Reheated Races
Dividing and conquering local populations confines them to manageable administrative units.
CHERYL THOMPSON
Dismantling the Myth of the Hero
In a world dominated by heroes, difference is not tolerated.
Alberto Manguel
Achilles and the Lusitan Tortoise
“Have patience” and “Tomorrow” are two inseparable locutions in the Portuguese tongue.
Stephen Henighan
All in the Same CANO
For a brief period the band CANO gave shape to the dream of a bilingual Canadian culture.
Stephen Henighan
Residential Roots
"The hemispheric context reveals the roots of the residential school system...Destroying Indigenous cultures was a positivist policy from Patagonia to Dawson City."
LISA BIRD-WILSON
Occupation Anxiety
Lisa Bird-Wilson on UNDRIP, reconciliation, and the anxiety felt by Indigenous people in Canada.
Stephen Henighan
Not Reading
What we do when we absorb words from a screen—and we haven’t yet evolved a verb for it—is not reading.
Alberto Manguel
Library as Wishful Thinking
Libraries are not only essential in educating the soul, but in forming the identity of a society.
Stephen Henighan
Lethal Evolutions
Our society is formed on the assumption of a healthy immune system.
Stephen Henighan
Confidence Woman
The woman who called herself Tatiana Aarons gave me an address that led to a vacant lot.
Alberto Manguel
Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader
Dogged dedication grants a reader vicarious immortality.
Stephen Henighan
Plague
What we can—and can’t—learn from the plague
Stephen Henighan
A Pen Too Far
On March 5, 2006, a group of people gathered in a small Ontario city in the expectation of having books signed by an author who was not present.
George Fetherling
The Daily Apocalypse
The newspaper wars aren’t what they used to be.
Stephen Henighan
Taíno Tales
A package-deal paradise reputation curtails gringo knowledge of Dominican life.
Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy
Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.
Alberto Manguel
A Fairy Tale for Our Time
What can the Brothers Grimm teach us about the state of our economic system? Everything.
Alberto Manguel
Literature & Morality
Must artists declare their moral integrity?
Stephen Henighan
Flight Shame
Without air travel, family networks might have dissolved long ago.
Alberto Manguel
The Defeat of Sherlock Holmes
There’s something not quite right about the grid on which the game is played.
"The tour guide said: every hour you spend down in the mine adds three minutes to your life." Michal Kozlowski reports from 300 feet below ground.
Stephen Osborne
Sleight of Hand
Stephen Osborne plunges into the pedestrian flow and encounters panhandlers, magicians and a cyclist praying to a monument of Edward VII.
Mandelbrot
Private Parts
Mandelbrot reviews The Secret Parts of Fortune: Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasms by Bruce Dern.
Michael Hayward
Artists Behaving Badly
Michael Hayward reviews the honest, outrageous and at times unflattering biographies of Lucian Freud and Rockwell Kent.
Patty Osborne
Aging: Not For the Faint of Heart
"We don’t often get clear and honest reflections out of hundred-year-old men, which is why Frank White’s new book is such a great read."
Patty Osborne
Elizabeth Is Missing
"When your narrator has Alzheimer’s Disease, neither you nor she can be sure of the facts, which is what makes this such an intriguing story."
Stephen Osborne
Don't Look Back
Stephen Osborne reviews The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature by Franco Moretti.
Michał Kozłowski
Bukowski Effect
Michal Kozlowski reviews Stardust, Bruce Serafin's essay collection: "punchy narrative, little exposition, unburdened by political correctness."
Patty Osborne
Buffalo Gal
Patty Osborne reviews The Perimeter Dog by Julie Vandervoort.
Stephen Osborne
Marginal
Stephen Osborne finds a copy of Francoise Sagan's Those Without Shadows at the bus stop, complete with margin notes that create a new sort of text.
Bruce Serafin
Leetle Bateese
"Since Drummond is spectacularly out of date, why not discuss him?" Bruce Serafin looks at William Henry Drummond's place in the history of corny yet unforgettable Canadian poetry.
roni-simunovic
Out and About
Roni Simunovic reviews Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives by Nia King, a collection of interviews about gender and sexuality, and how to make art, make rent and survive.
Michael Hayward
To the Moomins! (And Beyond)
Michael Hayward reviews Moomin: The Deluxe Anniversary Edition by Tove Jansson, a collection of comic strips that contain "the poetry of our world: sad, joyful, dangerous, enchanting."
JILL MANDRAKE
Here Lies
Jill Mandrake reviews Local Customs by Audrey Thomas, a ghost story and murder mystery set in West Africa.
Lindsay Diehl
Honolulu
Lindsay Diehl encounters choppy waves, a beautiful man in a hot tub and a pendant shaped like a curved tongue on a trip to Hawaii.
Alberto Manguel
Fist
Alberto Manguel examines the rich symbology of the fist, a primal symbol of rebellion and grief, across cultures and history.
Patty Osborne
Saint Ralph
Patty Osborne reviews Saint Ralph, the uplifting but untrue story of a boy who sets out to win the 1954 Boston Marathon.
Derek Fairbridge
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
Derek Fairbridge reviews a documentary on the Canadian rock band Rush.
ANDREA BENNETT
Rockin' Through Ontario
andrea bennett suggests that Road Rocks Ontario, a poorly proofread guide to our middle province’s geologic wonders, has a five-star rating on Goodreads because "people who like rocks like them a whole lot."
Michał Kozłowski
Publishing Life
The zine scene—comics, wrestling, skateboarding and music.
Wilson MacDonald
Author Tour, 1923
The poet Wilson MacDonald reluctantly reveals secrets of literary success.
Daniel Francis
Acts of Resistance
"Resistance to wars is as much a Canadian tradition as fighting them." Daniel Francis discusses alternative histories, anti-draft demonstrations and the divisive nature of war.
Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail
What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.
Elevator Will Not Fall
Ludwig Wittgenstein instructs you on how to comport yourself in a stuck elevator.
Drunk, Armed With Guitar
"RCMP are responding to Canadian Tire for a report that a male is threatening staff with an axe he was trying to return" and other tweets from @ScanBC.