Criticism & Essays

Imagining Toronto

Imagining Toronto isn’t a study of literary Toronto. Rather, it’s a study of how the city has been described and revealed in and through literature. Amy Lavender Harris, a geographer at York University, gives us ... Read More »

December 20, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Criticism & Essays

★ Beauty and Sadness

By André Alexis

People shouldn’t prejudge this brilliant book by novelist and playwright André Alexis on the basis of the long pre-publication excerpt – an indictment of Canadian book reviewing – that appeared last June in The Walrus ... Read More »

October 4, 2010 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Hooked on Canadian Books: The Good, the Better, and the Best Canadian Novels Since 1984

By T.F. Rigelhof

T.F. Rigelhof has been a critic and enthusiast of Canadian literature for decades, long enough to pine for the days when Montreal’s The Double Hook bookstore (which closed in 2005) was a hub for a ... Read More »

August 30, 2010 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Echoes of Empire: Victoria and Its Remarkable Buildings

By Robin Ward

Vancouver Sun readers know Robin Ward from his tony weekly column that tracks local architecture. With titles such as “B.C.’s oldest dairy is tastefully preserved,” these short essays, accompanied by Ward’s etchy line drawings, are ... Read More »

August 20, 2010 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

A Reader on Reading

By Alberto Manguel

In 1998, Alberto Manguel released Into the Looking Glass Wood, a collection of essays that, in its indirect way, pays obeisance to the enduring genius of Lewis Carroll. His new collection, A Reader on Reading, ... Read More »

May 10, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Criticism & Essays

The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature

By Coral Ann Howells and Eva-Marie Kröller, eds.

A single-volume history of Canadian literature “from the beginnings” – which here means the first European contact with Native peoples – presents a formidable challenge. The “two women scholars” (their self-description) who have edited this ... Read More »

April 30, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Criticism & Essays

★ The Heart Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief and Mourning

By George Bowering and Jean Baird, eds.

The Heart Does Break was born of paralyzing grief: Jean Baird, struggling with the sudden death of her daughter, Bronwyn, consulted counsellors and psychologists to help her deal with her loss, but found her greatest ... Read More »

January 25, 2010 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

What Is Stephen Harper Reading? Yann Martel’s Recommended Reading for a Prime Minister and Book Lovers of All Stripes

By Yann Martel

What Is Stephen Harper Reading? takes its name from Booker Prize-winning novelist Yann Martel’s project of sending Prime Minister Stephen Harper a different book every two weeks along with a letter of explication. Martel has ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Pathologies

By Susan Olding

Pathologies is an apt title for Kingston, Ontario-based writer Susan Olding’s first book, a collection of personal essays. In each of the 15 pieces, she dissects moments from her own life in the manner of ... Read More »

September 29, 2008 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Loving the Difficult

By Jane Rule

When her first novel, Desert of the Heart, was published in 1964, Jane Rule’s academic career was threatened because of its content. In that book, a May-December romance between two women unfolds against the backdrop ... Read More »

September 26, 2008 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

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