★ postcard and other stories

Those who complain about the sclerotic and uninspiring nature of CanLit are usually directing their ire toward novels and novelists: it is rare to hear such complaints levelled at short-story collections. This is because, along ... Read More »

November 30, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Migration Songs

By Anna Quon

The title of Anna Quon’s debut novel doesn’t accurately convey its spirit. One might expect a slow, pastoral narrative with lots of nature metaphors, but this is nothing of the sort. Though the novel is ... Read More »

November 30, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy

By Jill MacLean

Prinny Murphy is used to life being tough. Her mother is an alcoholic, school bullies hound her every move, and she struggles with reading the simplest books. At age 12, she seems to be on ... Read More »

November 30, 2009

Daniel O’Thunder

By Ian Weir

To a certain literary sensibility, the phrase “historical novel” has become shorthand for pretty much everything that is wrong with contemporary “literary” fiction. We’ve come to expect these books to be long-winded, conventional morality tales ... Read More »

November 23, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Love in Infant Monkeys

By Lydia Millet

Stories involving animals can often be a mixed blessing. At their worst, like the manipulative treacle of Marley & Me, such tales use animals as a contrivance through which human characters may better themselves. A ... Read More »

November 16, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ Me, Myself and Ike

By K.L. Denman

A first-person narrative of a mentally ill adolescent has to be one of the most difficult feats to execute successfully. Mark Haddon pulled it off in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, ... Read More »

November 9, 2009

Because I Have Loved and Hidden It

By Elise Moser

Elise Moser’s first novel calls to mind the phrase “a can of worms,” in particular its associations with sordidness and tangled knots. The life of Moser’s protagonist, Julia, has lately come to resemble such a ... Read More »

November 2, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

By Wade Davis

For many years and over many continents, anthropologist Wade Davis has chronicled the lives, languages, and customs of the globe’s last remaining aboriginal peoples. The outlook is bleak on all counts. Of the approximately 7,000 ... Read More »

October 26, 2009 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

Learn to Speak Music: A Guide to Creating, Performing, and Promoting Your Songs

By John Crossingham; Jeff Kulak, illus.

Rock is dead. But long live rock, thanks to a whip-smart new book by John Crossingham, who is not only an editor at Owlkids, but also a semi-regular member of Canadian indie darlings Broken Social ... Read More »

October 20, 2009

Hip Hop World

By Dalton Higgins

In Hip Hop World, the latest in the Groundwood Guides series, Toronto-based journalist Dalton Higgins offers an introductory guide to hip hop culture, outlining its South Bronx past and global future. Higgins’s thesis is that ... Read More »

October 20, 2009

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