Snow Walker, the film made from Farley Mowat’s book of stories, contains much cornball scripting, some wretched dialogue and a ponderous, bellowing soundtrack that equals the worst excesses of Cecil B DeMille’s Bible epics.
Stephen Osborne
The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580
The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580, by Samuel Bawlf, completes the story of European adventure in the north of North America in the sixteenth century.
Jill Boettger
Field Guide to Stains: How to Identify and Remove Virtually Every Stain Known to Man
Did you know that you are more likely to encounter Worcestershire sauce stains in winter and that correction fluid stains are most common in April?
Stephen Osborne
Marie Tyrell
“I knew that I would dream that night of the city in flames, the brown-brick towers falling, caving in on themselves (in slow motion, great clouds of burning dust), proud lights flickering out, psssfft, all the messages going dark one by one."
Sam Macklin
Complete Peanuts
Each book in the ongoing Complete Peanuts series (Fantagraphics) is beautifully designed by the Canadian cartoonist Seth, and features two years of thoughtfully reproduced daily and Sunday newspaper cartoon strips.
Derek Fairbridge
Da Capo Best Music Writing
The fourth volume in the Da Capo Best Music Writing pulls together some of the finest music writing published in 2003. It is rife with typos, but the articles are compulsively readable and they cover “rock, pop, jazz, country and more."
Jill Boettger
A Date With Destiny: Night of a Thousand Boyfriends
Just five pages into A Date With Destiny: Night of a Thousand Boyfriends by Miranda Clarke, I can’t decide whether to go to a hotel with an importer/exporter named Chaz, or ditch Chaz and go dancing at Club Neptune with a woman named Danni.
Derek Fairbridge
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album
Ashley Kahn’s book A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album, a lovingly detailed account of the creation of John Coltrane’s classic album of the same name, is a cause for celebration.
Sam Macklin
Asterix the Gaul
Asterix the Gaul (Orion), a comic book classic recently reprinted, tramples over all sorts of contemporary niceties.
Eve Corbel
Bannock, Beans & Black Tea
Bannock, Beans & Black Tea by the writer/comix artist Seth, is a small, beautiful, disturbing and touching book in which Seth has compiled, edited and illustrated his father’s stories of growing up poor—really poor—in St. Charles, P.E.I.
ARLEEN PARÉ
Between the Door Posts
Between the Door Posts, by Isa Milman (Ekstasis Editions), begins with this quote from Kafka: “How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?”
Patty Osborne
Frenetic, Instructive, Bossy
Patty Osborne reviews four new books from Mansfield Press.
Mandelbrot
Arctic Roots
Mandelbrot reviews Vanishing Point, a documentary by Stephen A. Smith and Julia Szucs.
roni-simunovic
Girls in Gangs
Roni Simunovic reviews Ashley Little's BC Book Prize-winning novel, Anatomy of a Girl Gang, which follows the story of five teenage girls growing up in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Stephen Osborne
The Parabolist
Stephen Osborne reviews The Parabolist by Nicholas Ruddock (Doubleday).
Daniel Francis
When Canadian Literature Moved to New York
What makes [Palmer] Cox so interesting, at least to Nick Mount in his new study When Canadian Literature Moved to New York (University of Toronto Press), is that he was part of a literary expatriation of Canadian writers to the United States. At the
Dylan Gyles
Not Quite Home
Dylan Gyles reviews They Never Told Me and Other Stories by Austin Clarke.
Patty Osborne
Punks and Beats
Patty Osborne reviews Razorcake and Tom Tom Magazine, two offbeat punk music publications.
Stephen Osborne
A Bridge in Pangnirtung
Stephen Osborne attends a gallery opening for Elisapee Ishulutaq, an 89-year-old Inuit artist who has been making prints in Pangnirtung, Nunavut for 40 years.
Stephen Osborne
Finding Paradise
Mandelbrot reviews Maps of Paradise by Alessandro Scafi, a history of humanity's attempts to locate utopia.
Stephen Osborne
Fresh Hell
Stephen Osborne reviews Mary Jo Bang's translation of Dante's Inferno.
Michael Hayward
Poetry of Place
Michael Hayward reviews What Poets Are Like by Gary Soto.
Kevin Barefoot
Granta
When Bill Buford took over Granta magazine in 1979 it was a burned-out case, bankrupt and generally unread. Seven issues later he cut a deal with Penguin that gave the magazine access to a worldwide distribution network and a stable of big-name autho
Kris Rothstein
Hail Mary Corner
No less harm in God is apparent in Brian Payton’s Hail Mary Corner (Beach Holme), set in a Vancouver Island seminary school in the 1980s. Bill, his best friend Jon and the rest of their pack run the school, promoting disorder, breaking the rules and
These stories and conversations took place in a Media and Communications Studies class at a Canadian college. Students come to the college from many countries, in the hope of enrolling eventually in a North American university.
CONNIE KUHNS
Fifty Years in Review
A new anthology of reviews, interviews and commentary on Joni Mitchell's music reveals the star-making machinery.
J. Jill Robinson
Hot Pulse
I am sorry I caused you pain. But I thought it was okay.
Stephen Osborne
The Great Game
The British called it the Great Game. The Russians called it Bolshoya Igra. The playing field was, and still is, Afghanistan.
CONNIE KUHNS
Last Day in Cheyenne
Remembering her father's last days in a hospital in Wyoming, Connie Kuhns struggles with questions of mortality, memory and how to fulfill her father's dying wish.
CONNIE KUHNS
Strange Women
Connie Kuhns' major profile of punk, politics and feminism in 1970s Canada: the Moral Lepers, the Dishrags and other revolutionary bands.
M.A.C. Farrant
Strange Birds
We don’t know why the budgie did it. He must have been unhappy. It can’t have been easy for him—pecking the bell, hanging about on the pole.
D.M. FRASER
Surrounded by Ducks
D.M. Fraser on the myth of cultural identity.
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.
HOWARD WHITE
How We Imagine Ourselves
When Geist first approached me with the idea of speaking here, I made it known that of all the things I ever wanted to be when I grew up, being an after-dinner speaker was very low on the list.
Eve Corbel
Getting It Wrong
It's human nature to jump to the wrong conclusion–and stick with it.
Annabel Lyon
Eye for Detail
What is at the heart of this Edith Iglauer profile by Giller nominee Annabel Lyon? Hint: Ice Road Truckers.
Stephen Smith
Rinkside Intellectual
Stephen Smith investigates the hockey lives of Barthes, Faulkner, Hemingway, which were marked by dismissal, befuddlement and scorn.
Brad Cran
Fact
Empires of Film
Brad Cran
Fact
Leading Men
"Leading Men” is taken from a work-in-progress, Cinéma-Verité and the Collected Works of Ronald Reagan: A History of Propaganda in Motion Pictures.
Daniel Francis
The Artist as Coureur de Bois
Tom Thomson, godfather of the Group of Seven, drowned in an Ontario lake under mysterious circumstances, and ever since, his reputation has been the stuff of legend.
Alberto Manguel
Cri de Coeur
Compared to today's vile heros, Ned Kelly-the Australian outlaw who wrote the angry, articulate Jerilderie letter in 1879-seems as innocent as an ogre-slaughtering hero of fairy tales.
Ivan Coyote
If I Was a Girl
Femme girls get free Slurpees, but boyish ladies get free cavity searches at the border.
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.
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.
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.
CONNIE KUHNS
Life After Virginity
A flower child looks back, to the time between Motown and acid rock.
Kathleen Winter
BoYs
Derek Matthews has to be the ugliest boy in the class but I like him. I’ve liked every boy except Barry Pumphrey now. Barry Pumphrey likes me.
Ann Diamond
How I (Finally) Met Leonard Cohen
On a rainy night in October 1970, I crossed paths with Canada's most elusive poet.
Review of "Let the World Have You" by Mikko Harvey.
Michael Hayward
Fact
ADVENT (AND OTHERS) IN A BOX
Review of "Short Story Advent Calendar" by Hingston & Olsen Publishing.
Michael Hayward
Wanda x 3
Review of "Wanda" written and directed by Barbara Loden, "Suite for Barbara Loden" by Nathalie Léger, translated by Natasha Lehrer and Cécile Menon and "Wanda" by Barbara Lambert.
Patty Osborne
Teenaged Boys, Close Up
Review of "Sleeping Giant" directed by Andrew Cividino and written by Cividino, Blain Watters and Aaron Yeger.
Debby Reis
Dreaming of Androids
Review of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? " by Philip K. Dick.
Anson Ching
Further Years of Solitude
Review of "Black Sugar" by Miguel Bonnefoy.
Jonathan Heggen
A Thoughtful Possession
Review of "The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories" edited and translated by Jay Rubin.
Michael Hayward
Sitting Ducks
Review of "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" by Kate Beaton.
Peggy Thompson
What It Means To Be Human
Review of "All the Broken Things" by Geoff Inverarity.
Daniel Francis
Future Imperfect
Review of "The Premonitions Bureau " by Sam Knight.
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Rocks in a Hard Place
Review of "A Field Guide to Gold, Gemstone & Mineral Sites of British Columbia, Volume Two: Sites within a Day’s Drive of Vancouver" by Rick Hudson.
April Thompson
Prayer and Declaration
Review of "Monument" by Manahil Bandukwala.
Anson Ching
Archipelago
Review of "A Dream in Polar Fog" by Yuri Rytkheu, and "A Mind at Peace" by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar.
Michael Hayward
Vanishing Career Paths
Review of "The Last Bookseller: A Life in the Rare Book Trade" by Gary Goodman, and "A Factotum in the Book Trade" by Marius Kociejowski.
JILL MANDRAKE
Part of the Crowd
Review of "Crowded Mirror" by Sheila Delany.
JILL MANDRAKE
The Doors of Perception Had to Close
Review of "The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital" by Jesse Donaldson and Erika Dyck.
Michael Hayward
No Regrets
Review of "Stories I Might Regret Telling You" by Martha Wainwright.
Daniel Francis
Known It All
Review of "Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country" by James H. Marsh.
April Thompson
Call Yourself a Writer
Review of "Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing" edited by Andrew Chesham and Laura Farina.
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Coming Unravelled
Review of "Unravelling Canada: A Knitting Odyssey" by Sylvia Olsen.
Thad McIlroy
Articulating the Inarticulate Speech of the Heart
Review of "The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression" by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.
TANVI BHATIA
Heat Death of the Universe
Review of "In the Dream House" by Carmen Maria Machado.
Michael Hayward
Is It Edible?
Review of "Mushrooms of British Columbia" by Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther.
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.
CHERYL THOMPSON
Dismantling the Myth of the Hero
In a world dominated by heroes, difference is not tolerated.
Stephen Henighan
Reheated Races
Dividing and conquering local populations confines them to manageable administrative units.
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.
LISA BIRD-WILSON
Occupation Anxiety
Lisa Bird-Wilson on UNDRIP, reconciliation, and the anxiety felt by Indigenous people in Canada.
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."
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
Plague
What we can—and can’t—learn from the plague
Alberto Manguel
Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader
Dogged dedication grants a reader vicarious immortality.
Stephen Henighan
Confidence Woman
The woman who called herself Tatiana Aarons gave me an address that led to a vacant lot.
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
A Fairy Tale for Our Time
What can the Brothers Grimm teach us about the state of our economic system? Everything.
Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy
Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.
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.
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