Category: Chirograph

  • Recommended Reading: On Occupy Wall Street

    Recommended Reading: On Occupy Wall Street

    As the two and a half week old occupation of Wall Street continues to gain steam and media attention, a similar protest is rumoured to be coming to Bay Street in Toronto. There have already been hundreds of arrests in New York, an excessive use of police force, and divisive and confusing media coverage of…

  • Camilla Gibb’s letter to Dawit Isaac, imprisoned Eritrean Journalist

    Camilla Gibb’s letter to Dawit Isaac, imprisoned Eritrean Journalist

    Camilla Gibb read this letter on September 23rd, 2011, at PEN Canada‘s commemorative event, “The Other Side of Silence – Speaking out for Eritrea’s Imprisoned Journalists.” Dear Dawit, I wonder if sometimes, you feel that imagination is all you have left. And if you do, Dawit, if you even have the strength to let yourself…

  • PEN Canada and Eritrea’s Imprisoned Journalists: The Unbearable Power of Speaking

    PEN Canada and Eritrea’s Imprisoned Journalists: The Unbearable Power of Speaking

    The tenth anniversary of the imprisonment of twenty Eritrean journalists on Friday, September 23rd 2011, might have passed unremarked and in silence had it not been for the efforts of PEN Canada and Ryerson University. PEN Programs and Communications Coordinator Brendan De Caires chose the most pertinent and yet unexpected words of Salman Rushdie to…

  • Q&A: Ray Robertson, author of Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live

    Q&A: Ray Robertson, author of Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live

    In the lead-up to the announcement of the winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize, The Toronto Review of Books will feature Q&As with each of the five finalists. Up first is Ray Robertson, whose book Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live is an exploration of what makes life worth living. After publishing his…

  • Gleick’s The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood: “When Information is Cheap, Attention is Expensive”

    Gleick’s The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood: “When Information is Cheap, Attention is Expensive”

    Written by Pulitzer short-lister and National Book Award-finalist James Gleick, The Information sets out to offer an informative information history. Beginning in a pre-literate world when any “information” vanished as soon as it appeared, Gleick presents an account of talking drums in Africa, a widely misunderstood but incredibly advanced mode of communication. Gleick then moves…

  • TRB Launch Party & WOTS!

    TRB Launch Party & WOTS!

    Here are a few snapshots from The Toronto Review of Books Launch Party on September 20th, and our table at Word on the Street on September 25th. Thanks to all who joined us on both days! Special thanks also to Sarah Merekar, our official launch-party photographer, and to Brittany Pladek, craftsperson behind our stellar TRB…

  • Robert Hullot-Kentor at Of Swallows Bookshop, Sept. 30

    Robert Hullot-Kentor at Of Swallows Bookshop, Sept. 30

    Of Swallows Bookshop says: Please join us on Friday September 30 for an evening with distinguished cultural critic (Things Beyond Resemblance) and editor-translator (Aesthetic Theory, Current of Music) Robert Hullot-Kentor, Chair of the Program in Critical Theory and the Arts, at the School of Visual Arts, New York City. In the final session of our…

  • Public Lecture: “The Reader’s Eye: Between Annotation and Illustration”

    Public Lecture: “The Reader’s Eye: Between Annotation and Illustration”

    The first talk in the Toronto Centre for the Book 2011-12 lecture series is today: Bill Sherman (University of York) “The Reader’s Eye: Between Annotation and Illustration” In Association with Book and Media Studies, St. Michael’s College, and the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Friday, 23 September, 4:15 p.m. St. Michael’s College, 100 St.…

  • Finalists for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize announced in Toronto

    Finalists for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize announced in Toronto

    It wasn’t long ago that the Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize was in jeopardy – longtime sponsor Nereus Financial dropped out in 2008 – but in May the Writers’ Trust announced a new partnership with former lieutenant-governor of Ontario Hilary Weston. The non-fiction has been renamed to reflect its new sponsor, and the first finalists for the…