August 23, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Memoir & Biography
Jane Austen novels bring comfort. As full of issues as they are, there is a comfort in finding oneself immersed in the Romantic era, when securing a “situation” – if you were a woman, that ... Read More »
The premise of this memoir is straightforward: blind man becomes a father. How will he handle this new stage in life, this new role, and the swaddling infant he can only see in the faint ... Read More »
June 9, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
The revival of interest in Sophia Tolstoy doesn’t begin or end with Michael Hoffman’s 2009 film The Last Station, in which Helen Mirren portrayed Leo Tolstoy’s wife and muse. A year earlier, for instance, Cathy ... Read More »
June 9, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
At first glance, there is something almost reassuringly Canadian about the fact that R.B. Bennett, who was prime minister during the worst years of the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1935, has mostly avoided the ... Read More »
May 31, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Memoir & Biography
The title of this addition to the lengthening shelf of books about Glenn Gould carries a slight suggestion of tabloid journalism. The suggestion is not altogether misplaced, given this volume’s subject matter. Many of Gould’s ... Read More »
April 30, 2010 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Memoir & Biography
Robert Morrison’s The English Opium Eater, the first major biography of Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) in more than 25 years, draws on previously unknown letters from de Quincey’s daughters and his 21-volume collected works published ... Read More »
April 30, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
In this new memoir, Judy Fong Bates returns to the lives of her parents, Chinese launderers in small-town Ontario, who also served as the inspiration for her novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café, and her ... Read More »
April 12, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
Benjamin Errett’s memoir about his conversion to Judaism upon becoming engaged to a Jewish woman has at its centre a potentially interesting subject, but the author squanders opportunities to explore his spiritual journey in any ... Read More »
February 25, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
In recent years, the memoir has shifted from the tell-all to the personal essay, and from there it has branched out into various forms of creative non-fiction: often beautiful me-centered takes on some aspect of ... Read More »
February 1, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography
A high-school teacher once told a young Margaret Avison to eschew the first person singular in her writing for 10 years. It was a directive the naturally withdrawn Avison readily took to heart. Nevertheless, the ... Read More »
January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography