Criticism & Essays

The Clouded Leopard: Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire

In his novel Justine Lawrence Durrell made the observation that “We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behaviour and even thought.” Wade Davis, a Canadian anthropologist and Harvard-trained ethnobotanist, has lived his life ... Read More »

February 20, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Body Music

By Dennis Lee

What is most striking about Dennis Lee’s latest volume – a collection of essays about poetry and poets – is that it’s poetic in its execution of language and expression of ideas. Body Music is ... Read More »

February 19, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

The Golden Thread: A Reader’s Journey Through the Great Books

By Bruce Meyer

By now, Canadians devoted to CBC Radio will know Toronto poet and academic Bruce Meyer from his regular book talks with This Morning host Michael Enright, even if they have never read any of the ... Read More »

February 16, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Ice & Fire: Dispatches from the New World

By Stephen Osborne

Stephen Osborne is one of the original founders of Vancouver’s Arsenal Pulp Press (known as Pulp Press in the 1970s). He is the publisher of Geist magazine, and Ice & Fire is the first title ... Read More »

February 16, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Criticism & Essays

This Is Our Writing

By T.F. Rigelhof

In This is Our Writing, T.F. Rigelhof, a teacher at Montreal’s Dawson College, evaluates the achievements of Mordecai Richler, Leonard Cohen, Mavis Gallant, and other Canadian prose writers. Some of these pizzazzy essays previously appeared ... Read More »

February 16, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

★ Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate

By Alberto Manguel

Four months of eyeballing slides at 8:30 a.m. in “Introduction to Visual Perception” changed everything. The instructor was a draft dodger with impossible sideburns, and he showed us how to read the stories inside pictures. ... Read More »

February 12, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Exploded View

By Jean McKay

There is no doubt that Jean McKay had an epiphany of sorts when she wrote her latest offering, Exploded View. In this collection of entries exploring the reading and writing life, every letter of the ... Read More »

February 12, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Kiss and Tell: An Intimate History of Kissing

By Alison Garwood-Jones

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Julie Enfield explores the physical and emotional journey our lips can lead us on in her first book, Kiss and Tell: An Intimate History of Kissing.The bulk of the ... Read More »

February 11, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

What’s a Black Critic to Do? Interviews, Profiles and Reviews of Black Writers

By Donna Bailey Nurse

A key figure in the growing public discourse on race and voice in Canadian letters is Toronto reviewer, literary critic, and journalist Donna Bailey Nurse. Her first book, What’s a Black Critic To Do?, is ... Read More »

February 11, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Suddenly They Heard Footsteps: Storytelling for the Twenty-First Century

By Dan Yashinsky

More than any other activity, it is storytelling that makes us human. Termites build. Primates use tools. Most animals have some form of language, of communication. So far as we know, however, it is only ... Read More »

February 11, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

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