Reviews

No Place Fit for a Child

Alberta-based former oilman Wade Bell crafts vivid emotional and geographic terrains in his latest short-fiction collection, No Place Fit for a Child. The seeming permanence of nature in the face of human failings is a ... Read More »

January 18, 2010 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Sea Captain’s Wife

By Beth Powning

Beth Powning’s second novel is the affecting and engaging story of a young woman seeking her place in the world – a place away from the loneliness and boredom of a small Canadian village. Azuba ... Read More »

January 11, 2010 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Could Be

By Heather Cadsby

Could Be is an excellent title for Toronto-based poet Heather Cadsby’s fourth book of poems. Driven by the vocabulary of dreams and the sleep-sense of a somnambulist, Cadsby walks the reader through looming tragedies, misunderstandings, ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Poetry

Automaton Biographies

By Larissa Lai

The words “four eyes” on the dedication page of Larissa Lai’s first full-length poetry collection telegraph her intentions. Comprising four long, complementary poems, Automaton Biographies reckons with matters of identity and questions what it is ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Poetry

I Am Here and Not Not-There

By Margaret Avison

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 It was a directive the naturally withdrawn Avison readily took to heart.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

Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000

By John English

John English was given a tremendous opportunity, but one that came loaded with risk, when he was invited by the executor and family of Pierre Elliott Trudeau to write the former prime minister’s biography, for ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Frank McKenna: Beyond Politics

By Harvey Sawler

A frequent criticism of political journalists is that they get too close to the people they are covering. On the other hand, biographers are sometimes seen by their subjects as having betrayed their trust (think ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

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

Joan & Goodridge: My Life with Goodridge Roberts

By Joan Roberts

The fact that the name Alan Jarvis now rings few bells in Canada is one reason that Bringing Art to Life, a stylish and beautifully researched biography by Andrew Horrall, is so important. Jarvis – ... Read More »

January 4, 2010 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture