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DNA poetry, thinking like Sherlock, and defining Toronto: Bookishness, Jan. 14, 2013
The little questions “What does Toronto even mean? What kind of city is it? What kind of place do we want it to be? That’s the big question, isn’t it?” – Edward Keenan, Some Great Idea. While you think about how you might answer the big question, try your hand at answering some little questions…
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History, true and fictional: A review of poet Kate Cayley’s “When This World Comes to an End”
When This World Comes to an End By Kate Cayley Brick Books, February 2013 $20 A first book of poems is a beautiful thing. But while this is Kate Cayley’s first poetry volume, she is no newcomer to writing. Her short stories and poems have appeared in journals across the country, she has authored a young adult novel, The Hangman…
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Public books: What Torontonians are reading at Union Station
As a recognized National Historical Site, a testament to Canadian urban beaux-arts style, and a committed travel hub, Toronto’s Union Station is an iconic public place. Despite said accolades, it is humble and mysterious, transformed day and night by its inhabitants, as a book is transformed by its beholders’ imaginations. As such, Union Station is…
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Top book lists, Little Libraries, and book cart drill teams: Bookishness, Dec. 17, 2012
If this is weird, I don’t wanna be normal Poetry makes you weird. The best best Distilling ALL OF THE top book lists. Grinches “In what can only be described as a fairly dick move, the town of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, has decided to ban Little Free Libraries, the most adorable manifestation of libraries to date.” I…
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Sex, Bugs, and Schizophrenia: A review of Poison Shy
Reviewed in this essay: Poison Shy by Stacey Madden. ECW Press, 2012. Sex, bugs, and schizophrenia form an unlikely trinity, it is true. And yet they converge with surprising semblance in Stacey Madden’s first novel, Poison Shy. Told through first-person retrospective narration, Poison Shy is the story of a love triangle between two heavy-drinking late…
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Starting the conversation: A review of First Nations 101: Tons of Stuff You Need to Know About First Nations People
Reviewed in this essay: First Nations 101: Tons of Stuff You Need to Know About First Nations People, by Lynda Gray (Adaawx, 2011, 275 pages). I’m a First Nations survivor of the ’60s and ’70s “Scoop”, the government-imposed movement that took hundreds of Aboriginal children away from their families, culture, traditions and heritage. I was…
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Chasing Cures: A Review of Erin Knight’s Chaser
Reviewed in this essay: Chaser by Erin Knight, House of Anansi Press, 2012. Without experiencing the discomfits of illness, we cannot benefit from the advancement of knowledge and understanding that accompanies diagnosis and healing. Erin Knight’s second book of poems, Chaser, released last spring, explores this fascinating contradiction, as well as the pathologies that affect…
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Hell on Earth: A Review of Jim Williams’s Rock Reject
Rock Reject By Jim Williams Fernwood Press 2012 $19.95 248 pages Asbestos was once referred to as the “miracle fibre.” It’s used as a binder in cement, as insulation and in anti-fire walls. It’s also a carcinogen with a legacy of death that stretches across the globe. It causes cancerous growths on the lungs as…
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Giant: A Witty Revolution
Reviewed in this essay: Giant by Aga Maksimowska. Pedlar Press, 2012. In 1988, Eastern Europe is on the brink of revolution. The citizens of Poland are weary from the stifling Communist management of their lives. Workers set in motion an unprecedented series of strikes that ripple across the country and ignite a slow but steady…
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Bookishness: November 12, 2012
Worth more than a thousand words Litographs: the entire text of classic books printed on 24×36. Here’s Around the World in 80 Days: The Smithsonian home for wayward books Inside the Smithsonian’s Book Conservation Lab, where rare books are adopted into a loving family. #love “This bit of utilitarian Web ephemera, invented with functionality…
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If Netizens United: Rebecca MacKinnon’s Consent of the Networked
A review of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (Basic Books, 2012), by Rebecca MacKinnon Chinese journalist Shi Tao was jailed in 2005 after Yahoo provided Chinese state security agents with emails he had sent on a Yahoo China account. The emails had alerted a New York web editor of a recent…
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Instruments for the Elevation of the Soul: The Plight of the Book in Twenty-First Century Paris
Paris conjures up many images. Some visualize the Seine and arching footbridges; others see patisseries shaded by plane trees or a five a.m. street crêpe; others still, think of books. Writers and writing infuse the city’s marrow, from contemporary stars like Muriel Barbery to the 1920s icons Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, and James Joyce, and…