BOOK REVIEWS

Fox on the Ice/ Mahkesis Miskwamihk E-cipatapit

Established authors of books for adults who turn their hands to children’s literature tend to take one of two routes. Some focus the lens of childhood on the same material that they use in their ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Picture Books

★ Suki’s Kimono

By Chieri Uegaki, Stéphane Jorisch, illus.

It’s the first day of school and Suki chooses to wear her favourite cotton kimono, a gift from her visiting grandmother. Obachan had taken Suki to a street festival where they danced, ate slippery noodles, ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Picture Books

Historical Atlas of the Arctic

By Derek Hayes

Geologist, author, and map collector Derek Hayes is back with another in his stunning series of historical atlases. Having covered the North Pacific Ocean, B.C., and Canada in previous atlases, Hayes brings his formidable knowledge ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Reference

Ha! A Self-murder Mystery

By Gordon Sheppard

In this era of harsh commercial imperatives for publishing, there isn’t much room left for big risky novels, those encyclopedic monster-pieces like Joyce’s Ulysses or Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, works that try to capture modern life ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Charlie Johnson in the Flames

By Michael Ignatieff

To be a foreign correspondent is to lead a double life. The work, which tends to take place in war-torn locales amidst violence and mayhem, demands an unnatural level of detachment and dispassion about human ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Morning Star

By Nick Bantock

Vancouver writer, artist, and book designer Nick Bantock closes the six-book saga of Griffin and Sabine with The Morning Star. As with the previous books, Bantock invites readers into Griffin and Sabine’s mytho-symbolic world through ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

The Wreck of the William Brown: A True Tale of Overcrowded Lifeboats and Murder at Sea

By Tom Koch

Tom Koch must be a busy man. He’s a professor of both geography and gerontology, a bioethics consultant for the Hospital for Sick Children, a journalist and media critic, a martial arts expert, and a ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: History

Sitting Practice

By Caroline Adderson

The opening scene of Caroline Adderson’s Sitting Practice – with a bridegroom striding joyously through a field of assembling wedding guests as the wedding meats are laid on the fire – is pure 21st-century West ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe

By Rob Ferguson

Imagine Lake Huron drying up and disappearing. That is what is happening in Central Asia to the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-largest lake and now number eight. The Aral is only 20% of its ... Read More »

October 16, 2003 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping

By Pamela Klaffke

We’re s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g‚” sang the Pet Shop Boys in the greed-is-good 1980s, when the economy exploded and we gulped down its products faster than Pac Man gobblers. And as we shopped – in those first, delirious ... Read More »