Welcome to Issue Six of The Toronto Review of Books, our charismatic first offering in a new punchier issue format. In this single-sitting issue size, we’re cutting through the noise to bring you six pieces that matter. You’ll attend succinct gatherings in our new short issues—the kind of conversations that are worth joining because they’re big enough to be sundry and small enough to be intimate...
It’s getting harder to be a creative in this country, but it’s also becoming more difficult to be a paying audience member. In a recent post on Back to the World, Sheila Heti argues that it’s time for “a New Canadian Myth for New Canadian Times,” one that will recognize the major support creators in this country get from fellow artists. I would add that when we’re thinking about support for...
We get lots of notices about intriguing events and projects each week. Here’s a sampling. ▶ Nathan Ng describes the Historical Maps of Toronto as follows: “If you’ve ever wondered what ‘Muddy York’ looked like 200 years ago, and then wanted to trace the city’s development over the following century, this ought to pique your interest. Each map in the collection has its own unique story...
We’re thrilled to announce that on May 7, to greet its sixth issue, The Toronto Review of Books is hosting the Canadian Historical Symbolism event of the season. Join us for what we suspect will be the world’s first Mystery-Science-Theatre-style screening of Heritage Minutes, along with some thoughts from Toronto political mascot @rebelmayor (a.k.a. writer Shawn Micallef), a reading...
Last Friday paleographer Erik Kwakkel charmed thousands of book and animal lovers on Twitter with hourly pics of creatures in medieval manuscripts. Here’s his #ManuscriptZoo.
[View the story “Erik Kwakkel’s #ManuscriptZoo” on Storify]
Though some of you will no doubt choose to celebrate Freedom to Read week in Toronto by exercising your freedom to stay home and read (for which we would never fault you), the week of Feb. 24-Mar. 2, 2013, does promise a thrilling roster of events about censorship and books to draw you out of the house. →Type Books is hosting a “Challenged Books Display” called CENSORED until Mar...
Yesterday we got a very interesting letter from an old friend in San Francisco urging all us Northern readers to go to the Toronto repeat of an event they just had in town: a book-launch appearance by Brandon Sanderson, second author of the now-complete The Wheel of Time series. Sanderson will be at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library this Friday launching A Memory of Light...
Dear readers, dear writers: Issue Six of The Toronto Review of Books is percolating through your thoughts as I type. If you suspect you have a part of the issue in your head, waiting to spit itself out on screen, be in touch. We’re looking for essays, both shorter (800-1000 words) and longer (1500-2000 words), as well as a few poems. Essays in our regular issues consider print and e-books...
Issue Five of The Toronto Review of Books travels from the collection of tiny model ships at the Art Gallery of Ontario to Yerevan, Armenia. It gazes on not-nothingness, and waves at David Foster Wallace. Download the PDF or EPUB, or read the issue online—and celebrate this mighty issue with us tomorrow. The evening promises readings of the marvellous poems in TRB No. 5, thrilling door prizes...
This season we watched deep cuts to Library and Archives Canada begin to take effect as we learned how the archives cached by web browsers make websites load more quickly. We said goodbye to the Toronto Women’s Bookstore and Douglas and McIntyre, Canada’s biggest independent publishing house. We witnessed our sometime newspaper of record, the Globe and Mail, try to discount allegations of...
In the last few weeks we’ve seen Canadian Members of Parliament reward crimes against abortion providers with Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medals and try to re-open the discussions defining life in the womb. Meanwhile, an American Presidential Candidate with a very real chance of winning next Tuesday describes himself as Pro-Life and wants to ban abortion. Given these increasing threats to...
Issue Five of The Toronto Review of Books is soon to make its appearance. Subterranean book markets in Armenia, tiny model ships at the AGO, Internet maps, and David Foster Wallace all take the stage in this most auspicious of issues. We’ll toast its arrival on November 13, 8pm until late, at the Poetry Jazz Café (224 Augusta Ave). If, by November 13, the U.S. election or the renaming of...