Kris Rothstein reviews Anna's Shadow by David Manicom, "much more than just another post-Cold War thriller."
Stephen Osborne
An American Story: The Speeches of Barack Obama
Stephen Osborne reviews a collection of Barack Obama's speeches that was surprisingly popular overseas.
Michael Hayward
Pie Tree Press: Memories from the Composing Room Floor
Michael Hayward reviews the autobiography of Jim Rimmer, a “high priest” of type design and private-press printing.
Michael Hayward
Wildwood
Roger Deakin's Wildwood is a heady romp through the world’s forests and their entangled histories. Reviewed by Michael Hayward.
Michael Hayward
The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. III
Michael Hayward reviews The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. III, a collection of discussions with the leading dramatists, poets and novelists of the past fifty years.
Leah Rae
The Echoing Years: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Translation from Canada and Ireland
Leah Rae reviews The Echoing Years: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Translation from Canada and Ireland: "Finally, a comprehensive collection of fair-to-middlin’ verse for the multilingual."
Michael Hayward
From A to X
Michael Hayward reviews John Berger’s From A to X, a tale of anger, displacement and resistance.
Michael Hayward
Saudade
Michael Hayward reviews Anik See’s Saudade, a collection of essays to plunge you deep into the meanings of travel and place.
Michael Hayward
Edward Lear in Albania
Michael Hayward reviews Edward Lear in Albania, an account of the author's travels through the Balkans beginning in 1848.
Eve Corbel
Ebb and Flow
Eve Corbel reviews The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble, a novel that takes place on land but is all about the sea.
Thad McIlroy
Failed Experiments in the Future of Publishing
Thad McIlroy reviews The Reaper by Steven Dunne.
Lily Gontard
Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell uses statistical analyses to prove that location and timing are everything in Outliers: The Story of Success, reviewed by Lily Gontard.
Michael Hayward
Notes from Walnut Tree Farm
A peek inside Roger Deakin’s living, breathing farmhouse in the waning years of his life in Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, reviewed by Michael Hayward.
Thad McIlroy
Slumdog Millionaire
Thad McIlroy reviews Slumdog Millionaire, a 2009 film by Danny Boyle.
Carrie Villeneuve
When You Leave Town
Carrie Villeneuve reviews a new album from an East Vancouver band that appeals to music fans of all ages.
Michał Kozłowski
The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess
“Adopt a reading pseudonym” is but one piece of advice offered in The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess by Andrei Codrescu, reviewed by Michal Kozlowski.
Michael Hayward
The Discovery of France
Michael Hayward reviews Graham Robb's The Discovery of France, a scholarly but entertaining history of France’s emergence in the modern era.
Leah Rae
The Chicken, the Fish and the King Crab
This edge-of-your-seat film follows a Spanish chef on his quest to win the prestigious cooking competition, the Bocuse D’Or. Review by Leah Rae.
Michael Hayward
The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You: A Guide to Self-Diagnosis for Hypochondriacs
Even the healthiest reader can uncover the fatal illness within thanks to The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You: A Guide to Self-Diagnosis for Hypochondriacs, reviewed by Michael Hayward.
Stephen Osborne
Kahn & Engelmann
Stephen Osborne reviews Kahn & Engelmann, a German novel by Hans Eichner hailed as a masterpiece in Europe.
Jennesia Pedri
Scumbags Behaving Badly
Jennesia Pedri reviews Gonzalo Riedel's wonderfully disastrous short story collection, Behaving This Way Is All I Have Left.
Thad McIlroy
The Celebrated Crad
Thad McIlroy reads Kilodney Does Shakespeare and Other Stories by Lorette Luzajic, the only book that discusses Crad Kilodney’s life and writing.
Michał Kozłowski
Sarajevo Marlboro
Michal Kozlowski reviews Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic, twenty-nine (very) short stories set in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s.
Daniel Zomparelli
Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry
Daniel Zomparelli reviews Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry edited by Mona Fertig and Harold Rhenisch (Mother Tongue).
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.