If We Ever Break Up, This Is My Book

If someone else is suffering enough to write it down/When every single word makes sense/Then it’s easier to have those songs around.” Those wise words were written by Bernie Taupin, and sung by Elton John ... Read More »

January 16, 2006 | Filed under: Reference

Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Chi

By Mary Gordon

On November 14, 1997, 14-year-old Reena Virk was swarmed and beaten under a bridge on Vancouver Island by a group of predominantly young girls. That the event was horrific and shocking is uncontested. That the ... Read More »

November 18, 2005 | Filed under: Reference

Against the Grain: An Irreverent View of Alberta

By Catherine Ford

If you buy into the stereotype of Albertans as a bunch of redneck, fundamentalist, rural yahoos whose solution to everything is to cut taxes and put the snakeskin cowboy boots to the liberal elites of ... Read More »

October 25, 2005 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Reference

The Dolphin’s Tooth

By Bruce Kirkby

An engineer by training, author Bruce Kirkby has turned his aversion to the nine-to-five rat race and a desk job into an abiding love of adventure travel, and makes a living at it. His second ... Read More »

October 24, 2005 | Filed under: Reference

Playing with Matches: Misadventures in Dating

By Amy Cameron

Billed as a companion book for women “who have more experience with recipes for disaster than recipes for romance,” Amy Cameron’s Playing with Matches attempts to capitalize on the impulse to anecdotalize the infamous (but ... Read More »

March 11, 2005 | Filed under: Reference

Bittergirl: Getting Over Getting Dumped

By Annabel Griffiths, Alison Lawrence, and Mary Francis Moore

It’s supposed to be a romantic evening. You buy wine. You light a few candles. You even shave your legs. Unfortunately your husband/boyfriend/boytoy has other ideas. In between arugula and apple pie, he dumps you ... Read More »

March 11, 2005 | Filed under: Reference

★ The Last Heathen: Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia

By Charles Montgomery

Maybe it’s all Gauguin’s fault that the islands of the South Pacific have a reputation as an earthly paradise, but readers won’t get very far into The Last Heathen before they wonder how the idea ... Read More »

February 28, 2005 | Filed under: Reference

Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada

By Will Ferguson

Predicting readers’ reaction to Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw is a simple task. If you know a few basic facts about Canada, and if you like Will Ferguson’s writing – and, judging by the success ... Read More »

December 21, 2004 | Filed under: Reference

Sea of Dreams: Racing Alone Around the World in a Small Boa

By Adam Mayers

It is a brave author who plunges into literary journalism to pen a book about extreme events or sports. No matter how interesting the subject being covered, the author will be judged against the pantheon ... Read More »

November 1, 2004 | Filed under: Reference

The Great Big Book of Guys: Alphabetical Encounters with Men

By Erika Ritter

The central conceit of The Great Big Book of Guys is simple. In chapters with such titles as “Amigos,” “Bad Boys,” and “Codgers,” noted playwright and CBC broadcaster Erika Ritter uses each letter of the ... Read More »