Reviews

Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison

Trista, the 15-year-old protagonist of Cathleen With’s debut novel, is a psychically damaged native girl from a small town in the Northwest Territories. Currently incarcerated in a youth facility awaiting trial, she keeps her newborn ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Book Collector

By Tim Bowling

The Book Collector is Edmonton-based poet Tim Bowling’s eighth collection. Add to that three novels, a collection of interviews edited by him, and the 2007 memoir The Lost Coast, and you’ve got one industrious writer. ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Poetry

I & I

By George Elliott Clarke

In an introductory note coyly entitled “Directions,” George Elliott Clarke explains the self-indulgent premise of his latest book of poetry. I & I links “phrases and images cannibalized […] from adolescent inklings.” It is the ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Poetry

Unlikely Soldiers: How Two Canadians Fought the Secret War Against Nazi Occupation

By Jonathan F. Vance

Unlikely Soldiers, by University of Western Ontario history professor Jonathan F. Vance, is the story of two young Canadians, Ken Macalister and Frank Pickersgill, who perished in the Second World War as agents of the ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: History

Dal & Rice

By Wendy M. Davis

Dal & Rice, Wendy M. Davis’s collection of reminiscences, is a snapshot of a way of life long vanished. Davis is a daughter of the British Raj. Her father, Sir Godfrey, was a high official ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Belonging and Banishment: Being Muslim in Canada

By Natasha Bakht, ed.

Given the state of the world over the last seven-plus years, it is worthwhile to hear from the voices in Belonging and Banishment, a new collection of essays edited by University of Ottawa law professor ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

A Shadow on the Household: One Enslaved Family’s Incredible Struggle for Freedom

By Bryan Prince

Describing the life of slaves in the antebellum U.S. is a monumental task. Bryan Prince, a Canadian descendant of slaves, tackles the subject by telling the true story of a single family: the Weemses of ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: History

The Third Man Factor: The Secret to Survival in Extreme Environments

By John Geiger

In the classic British film The Third Man, the central mystery concerns whether the elusive title character, played by Orson Welles, is alive or dead. Journalist John Geiger makes no mention of that movie in ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Health & Self-help

Death by Prescription: A Father Takes on His Daughter’s Killer – the Multi-Billion Dollar Pharmaceutical Companies

By Terence H. Young

On the afternoon of March 19, 2000, Vanessa Young, a 15-year-old girl from Oakville, Ontario, suffered a severe reaction to a common drug that she was taking to relieve the stomach discomfort and nausea she ... Read More »

January 19, 2009 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

Young Hunting

By Martin Hunter

Jack of all trades Martin Hunter’s coming-of-age story is an entertaining and easy-to-read read memoir that puts the lie to the common perception of post-war Toronto as a stuffy, boring outpost. Set against the backdrop ... Read More »