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 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 Madeleine Thien My first encounter with Do Not Say We Have Nothing was when I saw it on the Giller long list. Out of all the presumably great stories that made the list, the synopsis held my interest the most. Thien’s book follows a group of people as they struggle through the Chinese Cultural…
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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 George Orwell It’s been a while since I picked up Animal Farm, last in tenth grade, when they forced my class to read it. While I recall enjoying the story, I forgot about most of the finer details, so it seemed appropriate to revisit it. I hoped that, given my increased exposure to literature…
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by Ernest Zimmermann It may seem a stretch to believe that an intriguing statement was all it took to launch the late Ernest Zimmermann, then a history professor at Lakehead University, into countless hours of research and investigation that eventually led to the publishing of The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior, but that’s the…
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by Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson After finishing Niall Ferguson’s The Great Degeneration, I very quickly picked up my copy of Why Nations Fail, with the earnest intention of reading it soon-after, at the express recommendation of the author of the former. (Within his book, of course; I don’t know Ferguson, personally.) And then…
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by Nicholas Wade I’m very torn with this book. On the one hand, I felt it was a thoughtful exploration as to how genetics affects different ethnicities and culture. On the other, most of what is discussed at length is merely speculation––luckily, acknowledged by the author. Wade takes the time to explain the historical basis…
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by Niall Ferguson It feels like a long while since I’ve read a good non-fiction, so The Great Degeneration catching my eye really couldn’t have been more timely. And colour me impressed: Ferguson offers a brilliant insight into the decay of Western civilization. It comes with smug satisfaction that I now not only have a…
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