From a killer’s handbook to The Great Forgetting, how a history of literature came to be censored
By Michael Melgaard Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis McGill-Queen’s University Press 416 pp; $39.95 The ever-evolving battle between those who think the masses need protecting from dangerous ideas and those who would make knowledge free and accessible has raged for as long as books have been printed. […]
Barbara Gowdy’s mantra: ‘Just lie on your back and write’
Barbara Gowdy in her home. (Photograph by Jaime Hogge) If the past 10 years of Barbara Gowdy’s life were told as a stereotypical CanLit story, it would go something like this: a middle-aged writer, hurt by the commercial failure of her latest novel, retreats alone to her home at the edge of a park where, […]
Book Review: Tales From The Gum Tree by May Gibbs and Jane Massam
Title: Tales From The Gum Tree Author: May Gibbs and Jane Massam Illustrator: May Gibbs and Caroline Keys Published: January 1st 2016 Publisher: Scholastic Australia Pages: 24 Genres: Fiction, Children RRP: $14.99 Oh my! cried Snugglepot. I’m flying, I’m really flying! He couldn’t believe he was up in the big blue sky, and it was simply glorious. Join the delightful Snugglepot […]
Vanessa’s Top Ten
Posting my Top Ten cuz people have asked and, yes, they are listed in a particular order (however they’re subject to change should something better come along)–my favorite is listed first, because I’m not mean. I’m also not going to claim that any of these are The Best Books Anyone Should Read, but if you […]
The reluctant Gordon Lightfoot is finally chronicled in Nicholas Jennings’s biography
By Gillian Turnbull Lightfoot By Nicholas Jennings Viking 336 pp; $36 I’m a longtime admirer of music journalist Nicholas Jennings. It was therefore no surprise to me that he was the one to finally lock Gordon Lightfoot into the series of interviews that became the singer’s biography. Simply titled Lightfoot, the book takes its place […]
Must-read books for May: saints, soldiers and social media
Russian soldiers march at the Red Square during the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal in Moscow on May 7, 2016. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images) This month in book reviews: A new history of Russian war. A love letter to being alone. A fictionalized reimagining of Susanna Moodie. A searing depiction of the fall of Iraq. Read more below […]
Book Review: The Break by Marian Keyes
Title: The Break Author: Marian Keyes Published: September 7th 2017 Publisher: Penguin Books Australia Pages: 576 Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Romance, Women’s Fiction RRP: $32.99 Rating: 3.5 stars Amy’s husband Hugh isn’t really leaving her. At least, that’s what he promises. He is just taking a break – from their marriage, their children and, most of all, from their life together. For […]
Nothing Left To Lose
I can still remember reading I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER like it was just last week, though my rational brain tells me it was significantly longer ago than that. That book had a hook that hit me hard and deep. It was an easy setup to summarize, and so I told all my friends […]
David Yaffe’s Joni Mitchell biography plays it safe instead of reckless, despite its mercurial subject
By José Teodoro Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell By David Yaffe HarperCollins 420 pp; $34.9 There is a passage in David Yaffe’s Reckless Daughter in which Joni Mitchell, Yaffe’s elusive subject and restless heroine, having just aborted a major tour, sets out on a cross-country road trip with “an Australian ex-lover and a […]
The Eye of Hermes by William Howard
Yannick DcCullen is a blue and green Trionyx – seven-foot-two, spikes down his back and razor-sharp claws on paws and feet. Buddash Kyo is a Cranitian – skin cheddar-hued and large saucer-shaped eyes on either side of his oblong face. He has his own personal body armor – a scaled protective layer from the back […]