Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf 1904-1911

Like all excellent travel literature, Christopher Ondaatje’s Woolf in Ceylon provides a multifaceted approach to the island that was once Ceylon and became Sri Lanka in 1972. Ondaatje interweaves biography and literary criticism of Leonard ... Read More »

November 18, 2005 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

The Golden Cell: Gene Therapy, Stem Cells, and the Quest for the Next Great Medical Breakthrough

By Karen van Kampen

While many North Americans are familiar with such subjects as stem cell research and regenerative medicine from parsing the odd newspaper article, it is probably safe to say that the vast majority of us are ... Read More »

November 18, 2005 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

★ Susur: A Culinary Life

By Susur Lee with Jacob Richler

Susur Lee has long been regarded one of the master artists of haute cuisine. This much-deserved status is the result of his highly individualistic vision, which elevates Chinese/French fusion cooking into rarefied art. Thus the ... Read More »

November 18, 2005 | Filed under: Food & Drink

The Lion, the Fox & the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Rwanda and Yugoslavia

By Carol Off

The peacekeeper has become a Canadian icon, a source of national pride common enough to turn up in jingoistic beer commercials. But those who read Carol Off’s new book may wonder just what there is ... Read More »

November 11, 2005 | Filed under: History

Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives

By Robert Thacker

How does Alice Munro do it? She’s told us how: “I sit in a corner of the chesterfield and stare at the wall, and I keep getting it and getting it, and when I’ve got ... Read More »

November 7, 2005 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Down Sterling Road

By Adrian Michael Kelly

Down Sterling Road, the debut novel from Calgary writer Adrian Michael Kelly, follows a year in the life of 11-year-old Jacob McKnight, who lives with his father in a small Ontario town. Father and son ... Read More »

October 31, 2005 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America

By Philip Marchand

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, born 1643 in Rouen, France, God rest his weary bones, wherever they are, may have found solace in the words of his countryman and near contemporary Michel Eyquem de ... Read More »

October 26, 2005 | Filed under: History

Anomaly

By Anne Fleming

Good novels about Toronto are hard to come by. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje is one, Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye is another. Anne Fleming’s publishers would like to promote this first ... Read More »

October 26, 2005 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Anything but the Moon

By George Sipos

The title of Prince George, B.C., orchestra manager and former bookseller George Sipos’s poetry collection sounds like a rejection of shopworn imagery, and in the title poem he says, “None of that,/the old tune’s played ... Read More »

October 26, 2005 | Filed under: Poetry

Change in a Razor-backed Season

By Michael deBeyer

Change in a Razor-backed Season, Fredericton-based poet Michael deBeyer’s second collection, is an interesting sequel to his first book, Rural Night Catalogue. On one hand, this book shares some of the limitations of its predecessor. ... Read More »