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 Patrick deWitt Some books don’t really live up to the hype surrounding them. The two that spring to mind here are The Alchemist and Good Omens, both of which were repeatedly recommended to me and seemingly universally praised, but I thought were just okay, at best. With multiple awards won, being in the finals…
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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 John Green I have a bad habit of occasionally reading stories in a way that I suspect the author would hate. In the case of The Fault in Our Stars, it started when I gave Hazel, the protagonist, an Essex accent and continued when Augustus, her love interest, became a young Brad Pitt. (Young,…
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by Tracey Lindberg I occasionally struggle getting into a story. In the case of Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange, it had to do with the unfamiliar dialects. (Trainspotting improved once I was able hear the Scottish accent in my mind, whereas the great writing in A Clockwork Orange made the meanings of the made-up slang…
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by Robert A. Heinlein A smarter man than I once said that, while it is perfectly reasonable to dismiss a book due to its terrible beginning, a strong start doesn’t preclude a terrible transformation. (The original quote actually dealt with videogames, but it fits Starship Troopers so well that I couldn’t help myself here.) The…
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by Heather O’Neill A short story collection is an interesting outlet for an author to experiment with her craft. Given that the sequestered narratives have so little time to show and tell, it gives an author ample leeway to branch out to different styles and dramas. Even if a tale sort of falls flat––and, many…
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by Steven Brust If, when reading, I catch a lot of errors in editing, it really takes me out of the story. I can get back to it, but it completely ruins my concentration when I see that someone happens to be eating “Eastern-style desert (sic) pancakes”––you know, the ones you eat after dinner––or talking…
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