By Ryan Pike
There’s nothing quite like a good mystery novel. Deciphering clues and piecing together the puzzle alongside the detective is one of the more unique thrills in life, if only for the moment of realization when the clues fall into place and the culprit is apprehended. While a good book, local author Garry Ryan’s The Lucky… Continue reading Book Review: A local mystery
The book The Remains of the Day should ring a few bells for quasi-scholars. We know it’s a classic of sorts as the title trips so easily on the tongue, but when pried for any further info on the book, there is a bit of hesitation. In other words, when asked, “Have you read The… Continue reading Book Review: Never Let Me Go never lets readers go
By Jon Roe
Though the Berlin wall fell almost two decades ago, the effects of the Cold War are still felt in Eastern European countries who have yet to make serious strides towards matching their western counterparts’ economies. Straight out of Eastern Europe, Headcrusher puts readers in the perspective of Vadim, a Latvian bank worker who, disgusted with… Continue reading Book Review: Get yer head crushed
By Jon Roe
The typhoon-swept and isolated fishing villages of China’s coast make a fine backdrop for a novel, especially when juxtaposed against the hectic and expansive props of a modern city. Using both settings, Xiaolu Guo’s Village of Stone follows the past and present of Coral Jiang as she tries to find meaning in her current life… Continue reading Book Review: The real urban/rural divide
By Ryan Pike
Oil, black gold, Texas tea, no other substance has a larger impact on our lives, either in terms of quality of life or how much money it can make us. However, dwindling oil reserves have come to shape the foreign policies of oil-consuming nations like the United States, a phenomenon examined in detail in Toronto… Continue reading Book Review: Crude not too crude, dude
By Ben Hoffman
Garbage Head is a post modern epic. The book chronicles the adventures of a character of the same name–though not his real name, of course–but the book doesn’t waste any time on the point. Brevity is the name of the game in Christopher Willard’s Garbage Head and the average paragraph length clocks in at one… Continue reading Book Review: Garbage Head
We3With the help of Hollywood, comic books have been poised to cross over into the mainstream and be recognized as legitimate art for a while now. Unfortunately the process has been a slow one, for every in-depth article by respectable magazines there are still hundreds of people who see comics as little more than anatomically… Continue reading 2005: Read these words
Nearly 20 years after her death, Margaret Laurence remains an essential figure in Canadian literature. The award-winning author is best known for her Manawaka fiction, including The Stone Angel (1964) and The Diviners (1974). Establishing Laurence as one of Canada’s literary giants, these pieces received dramatic and cinematic treatment and are fixtures on high school… Continue reading Book Review: The Making of a good biography
By Kenzie Love
If Russell Banks intended to prove he is capable of versatility by writing The Darling, now available in paperback, he succeeded. Having traditionally set his works in New England and cast them with male protagonists, composing a novel narrated by an American woman focusing mainly on her years in Africa marks a departure for Banks.… Continue reading Book Review: The Darling not quite darling
By Kate Foote
The late Hunter S. Thomspon’s illustrious Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas outlined a fanciful, narcotic-induced road trip. While a veritable cornucopia of drugs spurned Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo along their journey, Calgarian author Will Ferguson’s epic journey across Japan was instead fueled by sake and a drive to follow the blossoming cherry trees… Continue reading Book Interview: Will Ferguson gets drunk, writes book