by L. M. Montgomery Well, this one’s been a long time coming, which shouldn’t be entirely surprising. I––like, I suspect, most people who enjoy reading a lot––have accumulated a large stack of books over the years. I mean, I’m slowly getting through it, I think, though it’s hard to tell if I’m actually making any…
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by Peter Wohlleben It’s amazing how seemingly little things can really ruin something. While I’ve spoken previously about how a synopsis with a poor focus can hurt a story before it even starts, the foreword written by Tim Flannery from The Hidden Life of Trees made me feel that it at least warrants a bit…
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by Heather O’Neill I think that The Lonely Hearts Hotel is going to be a tough sell for a lot of people, largely due to its explicit portrayal of sexual violence, but I think the author’s decision to explore it in such a way has to do with a commentary on perversion in society––though I…
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Hey everybody! I’ll be moderating another author panel Apr. 21 at CommuniTea and Coffee in Thunder Bay. In Write NOWW: Critical Conversations, the panelists will be discussing writing reviews for a variety of media, including books, films, and movies. The discussion will centre around various topics, including the value reviews bring to our culture, evolution…
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by Aziz Ansari Modern Romance, as a concept, seems like something I could really get behind. I mean, a comedian tackling a subject such as the culture of discovering love in the modern age on his own would lead me to think that the strength of the book would rest solely on the author’s ability…
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by Ronald Wright A Short History of Progress consists of Ronald Wright’s Massey Lecture series on the dangers of the very modern ideal of progress and runaway growth. The idea is that we may be on a course to our own downfall, and learning from the errors of the past is the key to saving…
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by Paul Kalanithi When I spent this past holiday season down in Florida, I decided I should bring some light reading to help me pass the time. (My family was kind enough to respect my need to bask in the sunlight in peace for sizeable chunks, and I greatly thank them for it.) In hindsight,…
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by Robert Taylor The Devil’s Pulpit is a collection of sermons delivered by reverend Robert Taylor outlining the parallels between the Bible and the Zodiac, with the suggestion that Christianity is only thinly-disguised paganism, and that worshipping God and Jesus is effectively worshipping the sun. Written and read in the mid-19th century, it was because…
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by Charlotte Gray I’m really having trouble with this one. I mean, it’s not even that it’s difficult for me to express my feelings toward it––it’s really good––but it’s just that I’m having a hard time talking about it, bringing any useful commentary into the review. Usually, with any of my reviews destined for The…
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by Sherman Alexie The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a story about Junior, a young Native American living on the Spokane Indian reservation. Learning at a young age how limiting life on the rez is, how the dreams of everyone around him are systematically crushed, he transfers to high school in Rearden,…
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