Reviews

★ Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe

Start with a winter in the mountains of temperate Vancouver Island, then add a troop of tree planters, about to begin their annual cycle once more. Then add Charlotte Gill. After 20 years on the ... Read More »

September 20, 2011 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live

By Ray Robertson

Toronto author Ray Robertson’s Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live is equal parts intimate autobiography, philosophical treatise, and cri de coeur regarding the sorry state of Canadian culture. Peppered liberally with quotations from the poets, ... Read More »

September 19, 2011 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Dancing Lessons

By Olive Senior

Olive Senior’s debut novel is the latest addition to the author’s acclaimed fictions of postcolonial Jamaican culture, which include the 1986 story collection Summer Lightning, winner of the inaugural Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book. ... Read More »

September 12, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Dirt Chronicles

By Kristyn Dunnion

The Dirt Chronicles follows a group of Toronto-area teens and young adults making their way in a world that has given them nothing and kicked them on the way down. Kristyn Dunnion (also known as ... Read More »

August 29, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ The Cat’s Table

By Michael Ondaatje

Certain experiences are galvanizing and become indelible, shaping a life. Such is true of the sea voyage at the heart of Michael Ondaatje’s sixth novel, a story so enveloping and beautifully rendered, one is reluctant ... Read More »

August 25, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Walking Backwards: Grand Tours, Minor Visitations, Miraculous Journeys, and a Few Good Meals

By Mark Frutkin

A rite of passage for many is to sling a backpack over one’s shoulder and tramp around Europe and Asia for months at a time, with only a few dollars and a phrase book. Friendships ... Read More »

August 22, 2011 | Filed under: Reference

Season of Darkness

By Maureen Jennings

Toronto author Maureen Jennings is no stranger to the mystery genre. Her celebrated Detective Murdoch novels are the basis for Murdoch Mysteries, a television series that has had success around the world. While she is ... Read More »

August 15, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Natural Order

By Brian Francis

Brian Francis, author of Canada Reads finalist Fruit (ECW Press), has written an ambitious second novel that dissects the disastrous relationship between a mother and her gay son. Despite an occasionally heavy-handed narrative style and ... Read More »

August 8, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Taking My Life

By Jane Rule

In 2008, the year following the death, at 76, of Jane Rule, an academic named Linda M. Morra made a startling discovery. Among the late author’s papers at the University of British Columbia, she found ... Read More »

August 2, 2011 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Oyama Pink Shale

By Sharon Thesen

In the first section of “Five Preludes,” the opening poem of Sharon Thesen’s ninth collection, a woman is caught in a moment of indecision about which hat she should wear when going out. Each of ... Read More »

July 26, 2011 | Filed under: Poetry

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