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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by Steven Brust Sometimes a sequel comes across favourably when compared to the original. Yendi is most definitely a case of this, improving on what made Jhereg good, while learning from––and fixing many of––the problems of the original, while trying some new things in the process. I’m going to be comparing the two quite a…
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by Jane Urquhart It feels like quite some time since a book came along and both delighted me and terrified me through its superb writing, making me glad that high art still exists in contemporary Canadian literature, though worried that I’m nowhere near creating anything comparable in quality. It should go without saying, then––but I’ll…
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by Steven Brust When reading, I sometimes get caught up with the wrong pronunciation, and I have a far too hard time letting go, even when someone corrects me. I’m thankful that Brust was kind enough to provide a pronunciation guide at the start of Jhereg; this way I hopefully won’t embarrass myself when discussing…
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