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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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Weird and interesting and funny and emotional stuff: a Q&A with Rebecca Rosenblum
TRB: Where do stories start, for you? RR: Anywhere, really. I don’t exactly “use” or replicate real-life events in my stories, but real life is certainly the mulch from which stories grow. Things that have happened to me and my friends, or things I’ve overheard on the bus get woven into a story that’s largely…
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Bookishness: Week of June 4, 2012
OWS v. NYC Occupy Wall Street has filed a lawsuit against New York City for the destruction of books and equipment from the People’s Library seized during an overnight raid last November. Short bursts of story The New Yorker recently published a short story by Jennifer Egan in a series of tweets over the course of ten nights. Of…
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Contribute to The Toronto Review of Books!
Dear Charming Readers, If you like The Toronto Review of Books, do think about contributing! Our blog, Chirograph, is always hungry for bookish, curious, and open-minded mini-essays and reviews of books and other things, new and old. Meanwhile, we’re putting together Issue Five and are eager to know your ideas. Also, if you’re interested in…
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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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June 20: The TRB’s Occupy Issue Launch Party Masquerade
Dear Readers, To round out our first year of publishing quarterly issues of thoughtful, playful, and provoking essays and poetry, we bring you a themed issue: we’re thrilled to announce the June 20th launch of The Toronto Review of Books Issue Four: the Occupy Issue. WHAT: Occupy Issue Launch Party Masquerade! WHEN: June 20th, 8pm until late WHERE: Poetry…
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The Royal Visit to Ashbridges Bay
As I see it, fair reader, you likely find royal tours either (1) unambiguously thrilling; (2) dull as dishwater; (3) dull as dishwater and thus quite enjoyable. I fall into the third category, which is why I happily agreed to live-tweet Charles and Camilla’s visit to Ashbridges Bay for the Victoria Day fireworks. Here is…
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Kaleidoscope: A Q & A with Gail Bowen
In Kaleidoscope, the thirteenth book in Gail Bowen’s Joanne Kilbourn mystery series, released last month, Joanne retires. Happily settled with her husband Zack Shreve and their 14 year-old-daughter Taylor, and at last liberated to take daytime naps, her prospects for a cozy retirement are good. But the trials of her neighbours, blistering unhappily in situations…
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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…
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Bookishness: Week of May 21, 2012
“The Daniel Day-Lewis of the method prank” On How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening, for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, and Civil Servants, with Illustrations Showing Current Practice “Balkan-Klezmer-Gypsy-Punk-Super-Party-Band” plays exclusive Air Canada show This made me smile so hard. Yay, for sure. Expand your vocabulary (beyond…
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“Funny Strange”: TRB Tweets Calvin Trillin, Seán Cullen, and Charles Foran on Mordecai Richler
Last night we had a marvellous time live-tweeting “Funny Strange: Satire after Mordecai Richler,” PEN Canada‘s event at the Royal Ontario Museum. PEN Canada President and Richler biographer Charles Foran moderated a chat between the renowned New Yorker author Calvin Trillin and comedian Seán Cullen. Tweets as follows: [View the story “The Toronto Review of Books…
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The Literary Revolution That Gave Birth to a Social Revolution
Reviewed in this essay: Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America by Christopher Bram. Twelve Books, 2012. Way before popular television shows like Will & Grace and Queer as Folk, there were a handful of gay American writers who introduced gay lives to mainstream America. Gay novelists, poets and playwrights of the 1940s and…