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Coming Home through African-Canadian Literature: George Elliott Clarke’s Directions Home
Reviewed in this essay: George Elliott Clarke’s Directions Home: Approaches to African-Canadian Literature. In 2011, Toronto city councilor Doug Ford dismissed Margaret Atwood’s rally to protect some 99 library branches, adding insult to injury when he said, “I don’t even know her, if she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.” Assumingly…
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Poetry Winners, Digital Cosmopolitans, and Hamlet’s Ghost: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. The Griffin Poetry Prize 2013 Anthology: A Selection of the Shortlist (House Of Anansi) edited by Mark Doty, Suzanne Buffam, Wang Ping — The Griffin Poetry Prize honours the world’s best poems written in English. The 2013 anthology includes selections…
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Wild Food Spring #5: Fäviken
In this series, Dylan Gordon considers cookbooks, memoirs and fictions about wild, foraged foods. Reviewed in this essay: Fäviken by Magnus Nilsson, Phaidon Press, 2012. Chef Magnus Nilsson, at “the world’s most isolated and daring restaurant,” deep in the heart of the northern Swedish wilderness, has been called “part Viking lumberjack and part Shaman.” Rebelling against…
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Beginning With a Diminished Thing: Marilynne Robinson’s When I Was a Child I Read Books
Reviewed in this essay: Marilynne Robinson’s When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012). Part social and cultural critique, theological dialogue, and literary exegesis, When I Was a Child I Read Books is comprised of ten short essays Marilynne Robinson refashioned from lecture tours and lessons over the past decade. Long-time readers of her work…
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Literary Celebrity, Question of Art, and Canoe Nation: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity (University of Toronto Press) by Lorraine York — York’s in-depth study examines the process by which a “literary celebrity” is created, specifically considering renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood and her team of…
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CanLit Canon Review #14: Donald Creighton’s John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing books that shed fascinating light on Canada’s history. Of all the books I’ve read as part of this project, John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician has most improved me as a Canadian. Published in 1952, this book explores Canada’s beginnings…
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Wild Food Spring #3: A Feast of Weeds
In this series, Dylan Gordon considers cookbooks, memoirs and fictions about wild, foraged foods. Reviewed in this essay: A Feast of Weeds by Luigi Ballerini, University of California Press, 2012. Field guidebooks often overwhelm me with their formidable erudition. First in each entry come the botanical descriptors, identifying features of leaf and root that mostly escape…
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Dinner Parties, Moral Porn, and Papal Book-Binding: New Books of Note: May 30-June 6, 2013
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. The Insufferable Gaucho (New Directions) by Roberto Bolaño — The Chilean poet and novelist’s five short stories and two essays, translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews, contain intrigues about “a stalwart rat police detective investigating terrible rodent crimes, or an elusive…
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Wild Food Spring #2: “They Can’t Ration These”
In this series, Dylan Gordon considers cookbooks, memoirs and fictions about wild, foraged foods. Reviewed in this essay: They Can’t Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit, Persephone Books, 2004 [1940]. Foods foraged from the wild are this year’s hot culinary trend, and all that limelight makes it easy to forget one fact: in much of history,…
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Choosing genres, missing art, and Wes Anderson presents the Bible: Bookishness for May 13, 2013
What to expect when you’re expecting a book “I waited until my first book was published to learn the genre, and when Oprah announced “It’s literary fiction!” just seconds after my pub date, I was overcome with joy. When we found out that I’d written a second book, however, we decided to find out ourselves…
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The no-spin zone: A review of Jonathan Dee’s A Thousand Pardons
Reviewed in this essay: A Thousand Pardons, by Jonathan Dee. Random House, 2013. Lance Armstrong could have used a hand from Helen Armstead, the inexperienced public relations guru at the heart of Jonathan Dee’s novel A Thousand Pardons. Whereas Armstrong’s stone-faced mea culpa was undermined by years of deceit, Helen would have had him prostrate…
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Translating Challawa: Pakistani Writing Between Urdu, English, and Lesbian Erotica
A small but vibrant literary scene has emerged in Pakistan over the last decade. After the events of 9/11 pushed their country into the media’s spotlight, many authors wanted to write their own narratives rather than have them transposed from elsewhere. Big names soon garnered global fame. Among multiple other awards and nominations, Mohsin Hamid’s…