Four days after Sandy, Shucard's parents are in good humour, very brave and very glad to see him—and unsure if he's taking them to Bolivia, Azerbaijan or Canada.
Alberto Manguel
Yehuda Elberg: In Memoriam
A writer whose work is among the most important contributions to the literature of the Holocaust is forgotten by almost all.
Alberto Manguel
Being Here
In the world between here and there, what place does one call home?
Francois-Marc Gagnon
Among the Curious
Francois-Marc Gagnon explores curiosity as the opposite of indifference.
Stephen Henighan
Against Efficiency
Stephen Henighan argues that efficiency has become a core value that heightens social divisions.
Patty Osborne
Absolute Centre
Patty Osborne reviews Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien (McClelland & Stewart).
Jennesia Pedri
Dividing Lines
Jennesia Pedri reviews Walls: Travels Along the Barricades by Marcello di Cintio (Goose Lane).
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Cut-Out Lit
Kelsea O'Connor reviews Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer (Visual Editions).
Eve Corbel
Collier Cornucopia
Eve Corbel reviews Collier’s Popular Press: 30 Years on the Newsstand.
Daniel Francis
Boob Tube
Richard Stursberg’s memoir of his years in CBC programming raises the question: How did someone with no sympathy for public broadcasting get the job in the first place?
Michael Turner
Oh, Canada
Michael Turner questions a US-curated exhibit of Canadian art that exoticizes Canadian artists while suggesting they are un-exotic.
Chelsea Novak
National Boyfriend
At a taping of George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, Chelsea Novak meets Canada's boyfriend.
Mandelbrot
Zero Drag and Genius
Mandelbrot reviews The Wage Slave's Glossary written by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell and illustrated by Seth.
Michael Hayward
Writing in Blue
Michael Hayward reviews Blue Nights by Joan Didion (Knopf).
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Grief-in-Progress
Kelsea O'Connor reviews Nox by Anne Carson (New Directions).
Stephen Osborne
Women of Kali
A feminist writer/publisher sought out stories of the partition of India: atrocity and hardship, looting, rape and murder committed by and upon Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.
Sheila Heti
Stakeout
Sheila Heti spends a day in a diner in Toronto observing the enormous EUCAN electrified garbage can at the corner of College and Bathurst.
Thad McIlroy
Hernia Heaven, Part 2
Thad McIlroy undergoes a hernia operation—and with Neil Diamond and the right kind of drugs, it might only take ten minutes.
Stephen Henighan
A Table in Paris
Stephen Henighan remembers Mavis Gallant, the original nomad of Canadian literature, who wrote some of Canada's finest fiction at Pablo Picasso's café table in Paris.
Ted Bishop
Edith and Frank
Ted Bishop visits Edith Iglauer and her husband Frank in their seaside home, where he is treated to a fast drive on a winding road, conversation on good books, and a lesson on what it's like to grow old gracefully.
Stephen Osborne
1968
Stephen Osborne compares the "major problem" of loitering in 1968 Vancouver to the 2012 Occupy movement.
Alberto Manguel
Facing the Camera
How much does a photograph really capture the essence of a person?
Daniel Francis
Deviance on Display
Daniel Francis investigates the practice of visiting asylums and penitentiaries as entertainment in nineteenth-century Canada.
Jane Silcott
Mimesisa
Jane Silcott explores the ideas of beauty and mimicry both in theory and in the wilds of a motel complex.
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.
Lily Gontard reviews The Luminaries and The Douglas Notebooks, two award-winning novels you might not have heard of.
Daniel Francis
Park In Progress
Daniel Francis asks why a high-speed commuter route runs through Stanley Park, Vancouver's precious urban oasis.
JILL MANDRAKE
Sometimes the Review is Longer Than the Story
Jill Mandrake reviews There Can Never Be Enough by David Arnason, a combination of dreamscape and tragicomic monologue.
Stephen Smith
Rinkside Intellectual
Stephen Smith investigates the hockey lives of Barthes, Faulkner, Hemingway, which were marked by dismissal, befuddlement and scorn.
Stephen Smith
Clip Your Toenails and Other Advice from the Pros
Collected advice from hockey professionals, compiled by Stephen Smith.
Stephen Osborne
Phantom Ride with Schopenhauer
Stephen Osborne's broken cellphone leads him to Schopenhauer, the Titanic publishing industry and historical Phantom Rides.
Eve Corbel
Yes No Good Bye
Eve Corbel marks historic Ouija board milestones and talks to the spirit of a pirate queen and Ringo Starr's great great grandmother.
Moez Surani
Enduring Freedom
Selections from ةيلمع Operación Operation Opération 作业 Oперация (“operation” in each official United Nations language), a poem by Moez Surani consisting of the names of military operations carried out by UN member states.
Patty Osborne
Canada’s Dark Depths
Sex, suicide, Nelson and Cabbagetown—Patty Osborne reviews The Modern World and The Secret Life of Fission, two hard-hitting story collections.
KELSEA O'CONNOR
All My Little Words
Kelsea O'Connor reviews 101 Two-Letter Words, an illustrated Scrabble guide by Stephen Merritt with running themes of sloths, songwriting and vampire dogs.
Alberto Manguel
Not Finishing
"A library is never finished, only abandoned." Alberto Manguel on incompletion, voluntary interruption and the pleasure of the day before.
JANE RULE
Obsession
"Asked to write a character sketch, I wrote three pages on Ann’s hands. The paper was returned with every line crossed out and a question mark at the end."
Jan Feduck
Hurricane Diary
Jan Feduck faces Frenchish food, vomit and guys from Ontario when her ferry from the Magdalen Islands is caught in a hurricane.
JILL MANDRAKE
Still Stupefying
Jill Mandrake is blown away by South of Elfrida by Holley Rubinsky, a journey into "the land of guilt and sorrow."
roni-simunovic
Second Chances
Roni Simunovic reviews Seconds by Brian Lee O'Malley, a graphic novel about getting second chances whether you deserve them or not.
Jesmine Cham
Technology Creeps On
Jesmine Cham talks scaremongering, tinfoil hats and invasive technology in this review of Technocreep by Thomas P. Keenan.
Stephen Osborne
Harrowing
"This is not a documentary; it is, however, an overpowering aesthetic and emotional experience, a true happening"—Stephen Osborne reviews Susan Sontag's film Promised Lands.
Eve Corbel
Seized
Eve Corbel reviews Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington, in which two girls are taken from their family by Western Australia government officials in 1931.
Michael Hayward
All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away
Michael Hayward reviews Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, a "a window into the vanished world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire."
Dylan Gyles
Philosophy and Chloroform
Dylan Gyles reviews Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? by Dave Eggers, the story of a disillusioned young man grappling with life, the universe and metaphysical truths.
Stephen Henighan
Iberian Duet
The assumption of mutual comprehensibility between speakers of Spanish and Portuguese creates a culture of mutual ignorance.
Michael Hayward
Smoke and Mirrors
Michael Hayward reviews American Smoke by Iain Sinclair, an account of the author's road trip across North America in search of traces of the Beat Generation.
roni-simunovic
Based Loosely
Roni Simunovic reviews Based on a True Story by Elizabeth Renzetti, the bizarrely fascinating tale of a washed-up soap star's struggles with unemployment and substance abuse.
Dylan Gyles
Floating
“Don’t try to make anything happen,” the calm voice said. Dylan Gyles visits a sensory deprivation float tank.
Lily Gontard
Wild Woman
Lily Gontard reviews Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir about crisis, redemption and hiking.