Daniel Francis reviews Toronto: Biography of a City, a book bound to irritate readers who live outside Toronto—the "centre of the Canadian universe."
Stephen Osborne
Last Steve Standing
Stephen Osborne says goodbye to Stephen Harper.
Alberto Manguel
Power to the Reader
"Since the beginning of time (the telling of which is also a story), we have known that words are dangerous creatures."
D.M. FRASER
Surrounded by Ducks
D.M. Fraser on the myth of cultural identity.
Stephen Osborne
Martin John and the Demon Mother
"In Martin John, Anakana Schofield’s new novel, the reader is beckoned, saluted, enticed and then drawn inexorably into the life of a demented young man."
Daniel Francis
Birth of a Nation
Lacking in drama and embarrassingly undemocratic, Canada’s origins owe a lot to old-fashioned politics and not much to European battles or transcontinental railways.
Anna Banana
45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana
An exploration of art and pop culture by Anna Banana.
David Albahari
Dangerous Times
David Albahari visits Canadian cities and remembers a slogan from the former Yugoslavia: Get to know your country in order to love her.
Eve Corbel
Gagster Movies
Eve Corbel reviews two short biographic documentaries: Seth's Dominion and I Thought I Told You to Shut Up.
DAVID COLLIER
The Last Grain Elevator in Regina
When you live in Saskatoon, you find yourself caring more about the details of grain farming then you did when you lived in Toronto or Windsor.
Rhonda Waterfall
Les Joyeux Lémuriens
“Thank Christ,” says Dieter when I finally wake up. “I thought you were dead.”
Alberto Manguel
In Praise of Ronald Wright
"Authenticity is the essential quality of all travel literature, imaginary or real."
roni-simunovic
Space-time Queertinuum
Beyond: The Queer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology is an action-packed, swashbuckling collection of short comics produced by twenty six writers and artists of diverse sexualities and genders.
Mary Leah de Zwart
Eaten by Dog, Run Over by Train
Wally, the orange tabby: Fell out of travel trailer going over Pavillion Mountain, may be living happily at farm on top of mountain.
Réal Godbout
Kafka in Clayton, OK
Are you an engineer? Are you sure?
Stephen Osborne
Unhappy
Stephen Osborne discusses the happiness level of Vancouver, the best place on earth.
Alberto Manguel
The Shy Man
“I think of my public speeches as the shy man’s revenge.”
Levine Flexhaug
A Sublime Vernacular
A series of of speed paintings by Levine Flexhaug.
Stephen Osborne
A Dream of Bearded Ladies
Stephen Osborne talks about Bearded Ladies, a documentary about the works of renowned photographer Rosamond Norbury.
ANNMARIE MACKINNON
Skip to the Obits
AnnMarie MacKinnon reviews Death and the Penguin, a novel that follows the life of a young Ukrainian writer and his penguin.
Evel Economakis
White Night Patrol
"The seven of us sat around a small, wobbly table in the living room and stared at each other between shots of rotgut vodka."
David Albahari
Voices
My friend, who writes poems and stories, tells me in the café that he finds it more and more difficult to deal with the writer inside him.
Margaret Nowaczyk
Knitting Class
During World War II my grandmother ran contraband, hunted pigeons.
Michał Kozłowski
Pillars of Salt
"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.
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.
An account of the circumstances surrounding seven literary honours bestowed on a writer.
Stephen Osborne
Pathfinder Deluxe
A young man comes into possession of a 1957 Pontiac, modelled after one owned by a legendary pianist.
Daniel Francis
Identity in a Cup
Is it the icons of Canadian pop culture—hockey fights, Tim Hortons coffee, Don Cherry’s haberdashery, Rick Mercer’s rants—that reveal the deepest truths about us?
JILL MANDRAKE
The Skinny
The UK literary journal, Flash, features concise forms of microfiction: short-short stories also known as "flashes".
Veronica Gaylie
Cowichan Sweater
You had to sleep in it and fall in love in it.
Veronica Gaylie
Melon Balls in Space
Shiny bras and worn-in sweaters—the clothes do make the woman.
Alberto Manguel
Dante in Guantánamo
After fol
Daniel Francis
Come to the Cabaret
The Penthouse, the notorious Vancouver night club, shares a history with several of the city's missing women cases.
Daniel Francis
War of Independence
World War I, Canada’s “war of independence,” marked a turning point for a young colony wanting to prove itself as a self-reliant nation, but at what cost.
HAL NIEDZVIECKI
The Life and Death of Zadie Avrohom Krolik
Hal Niedzviecki commemorates his Jewish grandfather—a heavy drinker, a bad driver and a Polish refugee.
Stephen Osborne
Everything Is Perfect
In 1946, a young bride writes home about her month-long sea voyage to her new home on Baffin Island.
Ven Begamudre
Memory Game
A writer talks about personal health issues and their connection to his family history.
JILL MANDRAKE
Pinspotting
"I hope you will agree that we more sensitive teenagers grew up surrounded by irony." Jill Mandrake calls George Bowering's memoir his most provocative work yet.
Stephen Henighan
Canada for Spartans
Stephen Henighan exposes the errors, omissions and problems with the Conservative party's study guide for Canadian citizenship.
George Fetherling
Man of a Hundred Thousand Books
Don Stewart, proprietor of MacLeod's Books, is an antiquarian hoarder of the highest order.
Alberto Manguel
Burning Mistry
Alberto Manguel examines a modern-day book burning and asks: how is this still happening?
CONNIE KUHNS
Life After Virginity
A flower child looks back, to the time between Motown and acid rock.
JILL MANDRAKE
Elementary
On the merry-go-round, you just shouted out a destination and all the kids pushed until everyone agreed we’d arrived.
M.A.C. Farrant
The Outlook for Quirky
Space travel, world religions and quotes from Pascal are just a few of the topics covered in these little phone calls between friends.
Stephen Osborne
Mr. Tube Steak and the Schoolteacher
Former Iranian schoolteacher, Mehrar Arbab escaped execution, moved to Canada and now earns a living sellingAll Beef Smokies.
Alberto Manguel
A Brief History of Tags
A reflection on the complex and often inexplicable process of bibliographic categorizations.
Jesmine Cham
Dear Patient
A woman, hoping to find peace, seeks her birth mother. A review of By Blood by Ellen Ullman.
Stephen Henighan
Language and Nation Now
Do shared languages form the natural boundaries of any nation in the world?
David Albahari
My Father’s Hands
Walking along the streets of Paris, watching thousands of tourists using their digital cameras, I remember the way my father held his old Kodak when he took photographs.
David Albahari
My Father’s Hands
Walking along the streets of Paris, watching thousands of tourists using their digital cameras, I remember the way my father held his old Kodak when he took photographs.
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