by Art Spiegelman I was a bit concerned when Maus II began with a big text dump in which Spiegelman expresses his apprehensions going into the project, along with inadequacies he felt growing up. Of course, this soon enough makes way to his father, Vladek, up to his old miserly shenanigans again, and I could…
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by Art Spiegelman Man, first Ablutions and then this; I really don’t know what I was thinking. I need to read something light and happy next, to help wash this wave of despair away. (Save me, Wodehouse!) Though, to be perfectly honest, I’ll probably be reading the second instalment of Maus immediately after this one,…
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by Rich Terfry When I first heard that Terfry would be publishing his memoir about half a year ago, I could hardly contain my excitement. I love his music, and it was always a joy to read his numerous stories he shared on Facebook ––some of which appear to have made their way into Wicked…
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by Elizabeth May After reading Mulcair’s Strength of Conviction and Trudeau’s Common Ground, it seemed fitting to end my excursion into political memoirs with May’s Who We Are. (It would appear as though I have a glaring omission with no Harper book, but I suppose it’s hard to read something that doesn’t exist.) Where the…
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by Justin Trudeau If you’re Canadian and have access to the internet or television, you’re probably familiar with the laughably bad attack ad against Justin Trudeau that the Harper Conservatives have been airing for quite some time now. The unfortunate reality is that, while I say it’s laughably bad, people always spout that line when…
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by Tom Mulcair When it comes to politics, I will admit that, while I can be highly opinionated, I have historically been largely apathetic. In making it my quest to become a more informed, active (hopefully) citizen, I figured that reading the memoirs written by leaders of major federal parties would probably be helpful. Since…
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by Christopher Hitchens As you may be able to tell from my review of Arguably, I have an immense respect for the late Hitchens and his writing. Hitchens had a very clear and unique voice––a point which he makes in Mortality, as he goes off to give writing advice––and he wrote in a way that…
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by Elie Wiesel “We were the masters of nature, the masters of the world. We had transcended everything––death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth.” I tend to stray…
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by Jean-Dominique Bauby I will admit to the unique method of construction of The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly––being dictated by an almost-fully-paralyzed author after his stroke using only a series of winks––being one of my initial attractions to the book. As extraordinary as this is of its own merit, the story itself is well-written and…
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by Helen Humphreys A nocturne is a musical composition, inspired by or evocative of the night. In its most familiar form, it is a single-movement character piece written for solo piano. With that description, it’s not difficult to see how fitting the title for Helen Humphreys’ memoir truly is, both channelling the spirit of the…
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