Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century

Joan Murray’s Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century is a first, though one would have expected there to have been a compendium of this kind before now. There is Dennis Reid’s Concise History of Canadian ... Read More »

February 25, 2004 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

Stopping Time: Paul Bley and the Transformation of Jazz

By Paul Bley with David Lee

I once saw jazz pianist Paul Bley playing “My Funny Valentine” in a Montreal music store. He did a kind of Goldberg variation à la Glenn Gould on the tune, turning conventional melody every which ... Read More »

February 25, 2004 | Filed under: Art, Music & Pop Culture

Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language

By Stephen Pinker

Irregular verbs! The very thought is enough to give anyone who has struggled with them a headache. In Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, MIT professor and evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker has taken that ... Read More »

February 25, 2004 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Spider’s Web

By Sharon Stewart

Don Tapscott (Growing Up Digital) suggests that use of the Internet is changing the way children actually think. Mary Beaty, frequent contributor to these pages, makes a convincing case that the Internet is a sort ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction

The Racing Worm Brothers

By Gary Barwin, Kitty Macaulay, illus.

Aaron is allergic to every pet except goldfish. But he doesn’t want a goldfish – he wants something he can pat. His brother Ryan suggests they find some worms to keep as pets. Before long, ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Picture Books

Too Tough to Cry: A True Story of Crime and Redemption by the Man Who Inspired the Poem Footprints

By Paul Powers

Paul Powers has had the type of life of which television movies are made. Minutes after he watched his mother die, the seven-year-old was beaten by his alcoholic father for crying over her death. Shortly ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Bambi and Me

By Michel Tremblay

Playwright Michel Tremblay’s book offers a dozen pieces, ranging from a short sentimental statement (which gives the book its title) to anecdotal satiric narratives about his boyhood, and adolescent pleasures at the movies. He reminisces ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

Beneath That Starry Place

By Terry Jordan

There’s the story, and then there’s the story telling. In most novels, one outshines the other. Terry Jordan, however, confounds us if we attempt to choose one over the other in this, his first full-length ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape

By Pamela Banting, ed.

How does the land shape our perceptions of the world? In her introduction to this intriguing anthology of essays, poems, stories, and memoirs, Pamela Banting suggests that writers in western Canada are increasingly eager to ... Read More »

February 24, 2004 | Filed under: Anthologies

The Last Manly Man: A Robin Hudson Mystery

By Sparkle Hayter

With The Last Manly Man, the fourth Robin Hudson mystery, Sparkle Hayter joins the ranks of successful serial crime writers. While Hayter’s work is uniquely picaresque and far less formulaic than the average female-authored mystery, ... Read More »