Seldom

Anybody expecting the quaint, feel-good Newfoundland of E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News is bound for a surprise in Dawn Rae Downton’s memoir of early 20th-century Newfoundland. Life is a whole lot tougher in this ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Anorexia’s Fallen Angel: The Untold Story of Peggy Claude-pierre and the Controversial Montreux Clinic

By Barbara McLintock

When Peggy Claude-Pierre, owner of the Montreux eating disorders clinic in Victoria, appeared on The Maury Povich Show along with her acutely anorexic client Samantha, the consensus was that Claude-Pierre was heaven-sent. Why else would ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Science, Technology & Environment

A Diary Between Friends

By Government of Canada, ed.

The idea of creating a scrapbook of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may seem like a morbid idea at first, but with more media coverage than almost any event in world history, the urge to ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Scattered Among the Peoples: The Jewish Diaspora in Ten Portraits

By Allan Levine

Detailed accounts of Jewish pain and suffering stretch back to the biblical book of Lamentations. Reading Jewish history can often seem like an exercise in pain management, and yet such works continue to shed light ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: History

Imperial Legend: The Disappearance of Tsar Alexander I

By Alexis Troubetzkoy

Did Tsar Alexander the First, the absolute ruler of 44 million people, vanquisher of Napoleon, and one of the most powerful men in Europe, throw it all away to become a wandering, penniless penitent? If ... Read More »

January 22, 2004 | Filed under: History

The Voice Gallery: Travels with a Glass Throat

By Keath Fraser

Keath Fraser’s voice was a choppy, strangulated, and unintelligible mess. Told for years that his mysterious ailment was psychological, he searched in vain for some inner failing that could explain his affliction. The Vancouver novelist ... Read More »

January 21, 2004 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Letters from Prison: Felons Write About the Struggle for Life and Sanity Behind Bars

By Shawn Thompson

Journalist-turned-academic Shawn Thompson’s correspondence with hard people serving hard time sets a steely tone from the first page. One of the author’s regular correspondents records the metronomic, dreary din of life behind bars: “More guys ... Read More »

January 21, 2004 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

Gift of the Bambino

By Jerry Amernic

The search for the ball that Babe Ruth hit into Lake Ontario – his only minor league home run – becomes the stuff of legend in Gift of the Bambino, Toronto writer Jerry Amernic’s first ... Read More »

January 21, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Broken Record Technique

By Lee Henderson

In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance – from the bow of an approaching ship – that it might have had a name.” ... Read More »

January 21, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Moody Food

By Ray Robertson

Conflict is story. Not all novels follow formulas, but a simple and effective formula is to give your protagonist a goal, then create conflict by presenting an obstacle to that goal. In fact, there will ... Read More »