-
TRB Podcast: Shyam Selvadurai’s The Hungry Ghosts
On Wednesday, September 18th, Shyam Selvadurai read from his new book The Hungry Ghosts to a warm audience at the Bloor-Gladstone Library. With an insatiable hunger, and a mouth too small to ever fill its stomach, the hungry ghost offers an image of greed in Buddhist mythology. Selvadurai’s new book is the story of hungry ghosts…
-
Congrats, Alice! Nation Chuffed by Nobel Win
Hearing the news about Alice Munro’s Nobel win this morning sent many Canadians to their shelves. Munro is an author to read in the morning and the evening, whose work repays frequent visits and recitations years later, and whose voice returns when you least expect it, yes, like a friend from your youth: “So one…
-
Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Palahniuk, and 1890s Print Culture in the Digital Age: T.O. Events for October 10-24, 2013
The William Morris Society of Canada presents a lecture called The Yellow Book, 1890s Print Culture and the Digital Vision. Lorraine Janzen Kooistra is a Professor of English and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities at Ryerson University. She introduces The Yellow Book (1894-96), a seminal fin-de-siècle magazine that is now available online. 7PM.…
-
Reading the Fine Print at Toronto’s Ben McNally Books
Ben McNally Books is located on 366 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario. When the number six bus stops at Bay and Richmond, its doors open to a storefront adorned with the words “read the fine print.” Located in the heart of Toronto’s Financial District, Ben McNally Books is surrounded by towering concrete buildings, an endless stream…
-
TRB Podcast: Love and Accusation with Catherine Bush and Douglas Glover
This Is Not a Reading Series at the Gladstone Hotel on September 17th featured Mark Medley of the National Post in conversation with Douglas Glover (author most recently of Savage Love) and Catherine Bush (whose latest is Accusation). Glover’s book is a series of short stories to join his repertoire of essays, prose, and nonfiction. Bush’s fourth novel, Accusation, tells the story of a journalist’s search…
-
New Heights of Fandom: Sheila Heti in Conversation with Tavi Gevinson, Oct. 26
American teen superstar and public intellectual Tavi Gevinson is coming to Toronto again to launch the second yearbook of Rookie, her online magazine for girls. Writing for The Toronto Review of Books about last year’s Rookie Yearbook One (also from the Canadian press Drawn & Quarterly), Ryerson English Professor Laura Fisher said that the book synthesizes images, words, and…
-
Dante, Science, Masculinity and Travels: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Dante’s House by Richard Greene (Vehicule Press) — Greene’s verses begin by tackling the intangible — the faint, grey areas of “rumours, misunderstandings and half-truths that often comprise our knowledge of the others” — and end with an homage in…
-
Serious Male Authors and Contract Status: On Gilmour and the Plight of the Adjunct
Among the most prominent people from the University of Toronto speaking out against David Gilmour is Holger Syme, a professor of early modern drama. In general I like the cut of his jib. His rant is epic and is well worth reading in whole. However, it touches on one thing that I find very discomforting about…
-
National Embarrassment/Bore Sparks Some Great Literary Criticism
Yesterday we learned from David Gilmour that being in conversation with “a young woman” means one doesn’t need to take one’s words seriously—but then Gilmour also taught us that literary “seriousness” is just for straight white dudes. Education’s great, eh? I can hear Jane Austen guffawing into a carefully hemmed sleeve in the sky. A…
-
Book Thugs, X-Men, and Three Kinds of Curators: T.O. Events for Sept. 26 to Oct. 10, 2013
Have a cup of tea and a cookie or three at Get Crafty!, a drop-in craft workshop. Make notebooks from recycled paper and pen that masterpiece without denting the environment. 11AM-1PM. September 26. Hart House Reading Room. Free. All materials provided. Let There Be Art 4 is your favorite arts and music festival’s favorite arts…
-
Never Mind the Musicians: Toronto’s R. Shelley
In this series, Trevor Abes sits down with local lights in the Toronto music scene. Michelle Ronchin is R. Shelley, a 22-year-old singer-songwriter whose Sink or Swim EP dropped last April. She has over five years of live performing under her belt, including a set at Hamilton’s Spring Music Festival 2012. When she isn’t writing or booking gigs, Shelley…
-
Atwood’s BookTweetables No. 8
Margaret Atwood’s best tweets, every two weeks. [View the story “Margaret Atwood’s BookTweetables No.8” on Storify]