Reviews

The Penguin Book of Canadian Women’s Short Stories

he Penguin Book of Canadian Women’s Short StoriesLisa Moore, ed.; $32 cloth 0-670-065552-8, 360 pp., 6 x 9, Penguin Canada, Sept. The only inexplicable thing about this superb anthology of writing by Canadian women is ... Read More »

December 19, 2006 | Filed under: Anthologies

The Wolves at Evelyn: Journeys Through a Dark Century

By Harold Rhenisch

The Wolves at Evelyn is a hybrid of creative non-fiction, autobiography, historical narrative, and philosophical treatise. As such, it focuses on the experience of immigrant families travelling to B.C., while providing a context for their ... Read More »

December 19, 2006 | Filed under: History

Mental Traps: A Field Guide to the Stupid Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Life

By André Kukla

There are typically two ways to incite change in people: by exploring the underlying issues influencing their actions, thereby giving them an understanding of the psychological factors at work, or by focusing on the surface ... Read More »

December 19, 2006 | Filed under: Health & Self-help

A Good Death

By Gil Courtemanche; Wayne Grady, trans.

How to die? By heart attack? By aneurysm? Going gently in the night has traditionally been the first choice of many, but recently when I’ve posed the question I’ve heard people choose very active deaths ... Read More »

December 19, 2006 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The State of the Arts: Living with Culture in Toronto

By Jonny Dovercourt, Christina Palassio, Alana Wilcox, eds.

Thoughtful, inspired, inclusive, careful to avoid deadly academicism as well as showoffy wackiness, and above all infused with a kind of I’ll-be-in-your-band-and-you-can-be-in-mine boho largeness of spirit, this second volume of musings on Toronto (after 2005’s ... Read More »

December 18, 2006 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

Conversations in Tehran

By Jean-Daniel Lafond and Fred A. Reed

Given recent spikes in demand for political books following major U.S. foreign policy decisions – leaving booksellers and libraries scrambling for titles on Afghanistan, Iraq, and, of course, Osama bin Laden – it’s likely many ... Read More »

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

Midnight Hockey: All About Beer, the Boys and the Real Canadian Game

By Bill Gaston

Midnight Hockey reveals a new side of Giller Prize-shortlisted author Bill Gaston. Meet “Gaston Beel,” a Canadian junior hockey player who spent a year in his vagabond youth as a player-coach – Reg Dunlop-style – ... Read More »

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: Sports, Health & Self-help

This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada

By Noah Richler

Several decades ago, a group of CanLit critics began appealing for more evaluative criticism of our national literature. What they meant by this was a stricter examination of how certain texts worked, an emphasis on ... Read More »

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

For Honour’s Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace

By Mark Zuehlke

For Honour’s Sake is a rollicking and thoroughly enjoyable survey of the War of 1812. From casus belli to peace treaty, Mark Zuehlke brings his prodigious writing talent to the history of a war that ... Read More »

December 15, 2006 | Filed under: History

Hockey: A People’s History

By Michael McKinley

Year in and year out, the overwhelming majority of sports books published in Canada are hockey books. But how do writers and those who produce their books for the mass market avoid the “just another ... Read More »