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Mahmoud at the Toronto Fringe Festival
Reviewed in this essay: Mahmoud at the Toronto Fringe Festival (Tarragon Extra Space), 30 Bridgman Avenue, Toronto. Remaining show-times: July 10 at 3:30 PM, July 11 at 11:00 PM, July 13 at 12:00 PM, July 14 at 8:45 PM. Tickets available online or at the door. It takes a special kind of performer to bring…
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TRB Podcast: Richard Stursberg’s Tower of Babble
On April 24, Richard Stursberg joined Don Ferguson of the Royal Canadian Air Farce in conversation at the Toronto launch of Stursberg’s new book, presented by This Is Not a Reading Series, D&M Publishers, the Gladstone Hotel, and the Toronto Review of Books. In The Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC, Stursberg…
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A Manifesto for Averting Global Collapse
Reviewed in this essay: Humanity on a Tightrope by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. For many, humanity’s position on Earth appears to be growing more precarious by the day. The threat of global pandemics and nuclear war hangs over our heads; the population odometer continues to rise; the forward agents…
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The Impermanence of the Ordinary: Full Frontal T.O.
Listen to the author read this essay: [audio:issue4/meermass.mp3] Reviewed in this essay: Full Frontal T.O. (Coach House, 2012), photographs by Patrick Cummins, text by Shawn Micallef Cities have been photographed since the birth of the medium, but camera lenses have tended to focus on urban life: its characters, opulence, industry, and grime. Where architecture was…
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Occupy the Right: Ezra Levant and the Redefinition of Canadian Character
Reviewed in this essay: Ezra Levant, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr. McClelland & Stewart, 2011. Ezra Levant’s jeremiad, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, is not actually about the eponymous Pakistani-Canadian, but rather about Toronto and the “professional protestors of the anti-war left.”…
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TRB Podcast: Deidre Lynch on the Culture of Scrap-books in the Georgian Period
Listen here: [audio: May2012/lynch.mp3] On March 22, Professor Deidre Lynch delivered a lecture as part of the Book History and Print Culture Lecture Series at the University of Toronto. Following is an excerpt from the U of T press release on Dr. Lynch’s talk, titled “Recycled Paper: Readers’ Scrap-books in Late Georgian Literary Culture.” Enjoy!…
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Kim Thúy’s Ru
Reviewed in this essay: Ru by Kim Thúy. Random House, 2012 Ru by Kim Thúy is a deceptive book. It is a slim volume, but hardly a light read. What it lacks in pages it more than compensates for in breadth and complexity. This is a big story pared down. Thúy lays her narrative of…
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TRB Podcast: Matthew Kirschenbaum on the Literary History of Word Processing
Listen here: [audio:May2012/kirschenbaum.mp3] On March 1, Dr. Matthew Kirschenbaum spoke at the University of Toronto’s iSchool Colloquium. Dr. Kirschenbaum’s lecture, titled “Track Changes: The Literary History of Word Processing” examines the past and continued influence that word processing technology has had on the craft of literary composition. Listen and enjoy! The U of T press…
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A Horrifying Tale of Undying Obsession
If I can credit anyone with breeding an interest in me for flesh-eating zombies, demons, and blood-sucking creatures of the night, it would be R. L. Stine, creator of the kids’ horror book series Goosebumps, a franchise which turns twenty this year. James Parker has a piece in the March edition of The Atlantic in…
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TRB Podcast: Ruth Panofsky on The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada
Listen here: [audio: May2012/panofsky.mp3] On March 19, Ryerson University hosted an interview and launch for Ruth Panofsky’s new book, The Literary Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada: Making Books and Mapping Culture, at the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre. This event featured the author in conversation with Steven W. Beattie (book review editor, Quill and…
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On Goldstein’s Novels of Ideas: Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince
This piece continues a series of reviews highlighting philosopher-novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s list of the best “novels of ideas”. Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince was the fourth entry on her list. Reviewed in this essay: The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch. Penguin Classics, 2003 (Originally published: 1973) The Black Prince is the story of Bradley Pearson,…
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The World Absurd
Reviewed in this essay: Look Down, This is Where It Must Have Happened by Hal Niedzviecki. City Lights Books, 2011. Hal Niedzviecki’s Look Down, This Is Where It Must Have Happened, will perturb you if you like to think the world is mostly a predictable place if you play your cards right. In each of…