Reviews

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Katherine Ashenburg’s The Dirt on Clean, it’s that 17th-century Europe must have been a pungent place. According to Ashenburg’s history of cleanliness in the western world, royalty of ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

Smuggling Donkeys

By David Helwig

Along with Richard B. Wright’s October and D.R. MacDonald’s Lauchlin of the Bad Heart, David Helwig’s new novella is one of a string of recent Canadian books that centre on men of a certain age ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Promises to Keep

By Charles de Lint

Ottawa writer Charles de Lint has carved a successful niche for himself writing contemporary urban fantasy. Many of de Lint’s more popular works are set in the imagined city of Newford, a seemingly nondescript, mid-sized ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The Man Who Forgot How to Read

By Howard Engel

One summer morning in 2001, author Howard Engel woke up, went to his front door, and realized that he could not read the front page of The Globe and Mail. At first, Engel, known to ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

★ Trading in Memories: Travels Through a Scavenger’s Favorite Places

By Barbara Hodgson

In a time when words like “charming” and “quirky” are frequently and undeservedly used to describe bland chick-lit heroines and actresses, Barbara Hodgson’s exploration of curious and cast-off items truly merits the adjectives. How else ... Read More »

December 20, 2007 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

And Beauty Answers: The Life of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle

By Elspeth Cameron

As Canadians, we tend to overlook our own history of modern art, eclipsed as it was by the advances toward Modernism in Europe and America early in the 20th century. The 1913 New York Armory ... Read More »

December 17, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Memoir & Biography

Sitcom

By David McGimpsey

David McGimpsey is a kind of Canadian pop-poetry hero. While his previous collections have been well received, they have also been subject to criticism questioning the relevance of pop-culture verse. Sitcom, McGimpsey’s latest collection, is ... Read More »

December 14, 2007 | Filed under: Poetry

Wonderfull

By William Neil Scott

Wonderfull is the kind of novel that gives magic realism a bad name. Oswald Brodie, the narrator, begins by exhorting readers to flick their lights on and off if we hear him, and then goes ... Read More »

December 14, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Twice Born

By Pauline Gedge

Pauline Gedge’s latest novel of ancient Egypt tells the story of Huy, a young scribe destined for greatness. When Huy is sent from his impoverished town to study with the sons of nobles at the ... Read More »

December 14, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Lost Highway

By David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards is a unique writer in Canada, one who evolved from purely language-driven fiction (1976’s Blood Ties being the best example) to work that has traded linguistic effect for moral depth and for ... Read More »

December 14, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Prev 310 311312313 314....698 699 Next