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Bad Sex in Fiction and Many Kinds of Love
Let’s take a minute to talk about bad sex. On Dec. 3, a group of literary men and women gathered at the In & Out Club in the district of St. James, central London, united with this single-minded purpose. They were gathered to announce the winner of the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award.…
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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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Bookishness: Week of November 28, 2011
No sleep please, we’re novelists We’ve entered the final days of National Novel Writing Month. Particpants have until Wednesday night at 11:59:59 to finish the mandated 50,000 words that will mark their works as novels according to the people at NaNoWriMo. Anyone needing inspiration for these final laps might want to try Written? Kitten! (via Huff Post Books), or, for…
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A TRB Q&A with Grant Lawrence, Author of Adventures in Solitude
Grant Lawrence is probably best known to Canadians as a voice on the radio (or podcast). He has been the host of various CBC Radio shows for years, and has weekly podcast, CBC Radio 3 Podcast with Grant Lawrence, that showcases Canadian indie music. He was also the lead singer in The Smugglers, an indie…
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International Festival of Authors: Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finalists Reading
A Review of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finalists Reading Featuring Clarke Blaise, Michael Christie, Patrick deWitt, Esi Edugyan and Dan Vyleta; hosted by Rabindranath Maharaj. Wednesday, October 26, 2011. The Brigantine Room. This past Wednesday, the TRB attended the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finalists Reading at the International Festival of Authors. The…
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A TRB Q&A with Charles Foran, author of Mordecai: The Life and Times
Last night, Charles Foran won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize, the richest prize in Canadian literature. Foran’s book, Mordecai: The Life and Times is the unauthorized biography of one of Canada’s great, and somewhat controversial, novelists, Mordecai Richler. Since its release in October 2010, Mordecai has won both the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction and the Helen…
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A TRB Q+A with Charlotte Gill, author of Eating Dirt
Charlotte Gill started tree planting as a summer job during university. That first summer turned into a 17-season career that saw Gill plant over 1 million trees all over Canada. When not on the cut blocks, Gill started writing. Her debut short story collection Ladykiller was shortlisted for the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Awards and won…
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A TRB Q&A with Richard Gwyn, author of Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times
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. In 2007, Richard Gwyn published John A: The Man Who Made Us, the first volume in his biography of Canada’s first prime minister, which…
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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…