edited by Anthony Arnove Iraq Under Siege is a collection of articles, essays, and interview transcripts documenting the deleterious effects of UN-imposed, US- and UK-backed economic sanctions placed on Iraq through the entirety of the ’90s. Written pre-9/11, the pieces portray the widespread suffering that befell the average Iraqi during the period while leaving members…
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by Dave Grossman I honestly don’t remember where I first heard about On Killing, but it sure intrigued me at the time. Grossman’s book is about the conditioning employed by modern militaries in order to persuade reluctant soldiers into effectively killing, the emotional and psychiatric toll killing has on soldiers, and––I didn’t realize this, then––how…
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by Payam Akhavan Akhavan was an Iranian immigrant to Canada in the late ’70s, and part of the religious minority that was soon to face the brunt of the hate and violence to come from the radical Iranian government that took charge after the revolution. He became a successful lawyer within the International Criminal Court…
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by Robert M. Pirsig I must say, this year in reading’s been an interesting one for me. I mean, it’s had its ups and downs––nowhere near as many books that I love, love, LOVED like last year, but not one but two where I had something akin to a religious experience while reading. The first…
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by J. D. Salinger This is a book I’ve been meaning to re-read for quite some time. I think I’ve been hesitant to pick it up mainly because of my experience doing so with another book I previously held in such high regard, The Shining. It doesn’t feel good reframing, for the worse, the way…
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by Voltaire Candide follows its titular character through trials and tribulations that take him around the globe in pursuit of Cunégonde, the woman he loves. At a young age, his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, instilled an understanding in Candide of the concept of Optimism, or a universal good in the world, and the young man takes…
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by Kevin Hardcastle Once a successful mixed-martial arts fighter, an injury leaves Daniel unable to fight. Left with little options in a rural Canada struggling with widespread joblessness, he starts working as hired muscle for small-time drug deals, but the work’s getting bloodier and the crooks are getting more bloodthirsty. In the Cage explores Daniel’s…
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by Gary Barwin No TV for Woodpeckers is Barwin’s collection of experimental poetry. In the first section, “Needleminer,” the author takes a number of poems by other authors––representative of the industrial Hamilton landscape, from what he explains––and populates it with flora and fauna found throughout the area by replacing nouns from the source poems with…
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by Susan Payetta I previously discussed the importance of ensuring your readers come into your story with the right expectations, and the pitfalls associated with a failure to get into the heart of the plot in the synopsis. I wanted to extend the discussion a bit to a related topic: reader expectations that build during…
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by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell The Room is a bad movie, but it’s more than that. It’s a special kind of bad, an elite kind of bad, described as a modern Plan 9 from Outer Space or the Citizen Kane of bad movies––the kind of bad movie with a lasting legacy. The Disaster Artist…
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