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BOOKS BY GENRE
Chronicler of the Winds
Henning Mankell is perhaps best known as the author of the Kurt Wallander series of crime stories. He has, though, an impressive volume of work outside of that genre, including the one discussed here.
Chronicler of the Winds is written with both great inten...
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Book Review: The Truth About Canada
As implied by the tabloid-style title, Mel Hurtig’s latest book is necessary reading, particularly for journalists, editorial writers, politicians, and CEOs. For all Canadians it provides a mass of data and sources to evaluate the misleading and often downrigh...
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Five books about Anne of Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery
Early in her career, soon after the publication of Anne of Green Gables and the novels that rapidly followed it, L. M. Montgomery became a famous Canadian writer. Governors General and British peers arrived in Prince Edward Island, intent on meeting her. By th...
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Who Owns Canada Now: Canada's mega-rich
This book is primarily about the richest 75 billionaires in Canada but ends with a discussion of what the situation is currently and what the future holds – for wealthy families and for Canada – with Ms Francis’ policy recommendations to make Canada more entre...
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Is Canada for Sale?
The following is an excerpt from Who Owns Canada Now: Old Money, New Money and The Future of Canadian Business, by Diane Francis, and published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Besides taxation, another perennial policy concern has been Canada’s rel...
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A code to crack from Pulitzer winner Brooks
I should start by saying that this is not the kind of book I would normally pick up. I will also risk losing the reader entirely by saying that this book reminds me of The Da Vinci Code.
If you’re still with me, I can elaborate. People of the Book is in m...
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The Queen has a slight cold
It was the dogs’ fault
Alan Bennett is an award winning writer and actor perhaps best known for having been a member of the legendary comedy group Beyond the Fringe, and for his play and screenplay The Madness of George III. His latest work, although a nov...
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Cause(way) and Effect
Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, by Linden MacIntyre is part history, part nostalgia and part coming of age. This non-fiction work chronicles the construction of the Canso Causeway that joined Cape Breton Island to mainland Nova Scotia. MacIntyre employs th...
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Halifax lawyer Anne Emery chases mystery with prose
The seedy underbelly of contemporary Halifax comes to life in this trio of suspense thrillers by local author Anne Emery. Protagonist Monty Collins is a Halifax lawyer and amateur blues musician whose personal life is as complex as the mysteries he unravels.
...
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Katherine Barber: Facts about the Language from Canada’s Word Lady
Six Words you Never Knew had Something to With Pigs and Only in Canada, You Say are two small books by Katherine Barber, the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. She may be better known as “Canada’s Word Lady” and is a frequent guest on both CBC ...
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Paul Auster: The Brooklyn Follies
New York City writer Paul Auster’s latest novel, The Brooklyn Follies, is a curious entry into his already heady body of work.
Known as one of the most forceful - but surprisingly playful - of post-modern American authors, Auster explores absurdity in his w...
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Cornell Woolrich Returns With Fright
The Hard Case Crime paperback imprint has uncovered another long-lost pulp fiction masterpiece. This time out it’s Cornell Woolrich’s 1950 murder mystery Fright, first published under the pseudonym George Hopley (one of Woolrich’s other favourite nom-de-plumes...
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Book Vs Film: Gods And Monsters
Christopher Bram’s 1996 novel Father Of Frankenstein became Bill Condon’s Academy Award-winning feature film Gods And Monsters. With a paperback version of the novel - renamed to match the movie - now hitting the remainder bins, fans of filmic adaptations have...
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Fine Lines: Clothesline Culture
Fine Lines: A Celebration of Clothesline Culture is an exhaustive study of the habits and obsessions of clothesline devotees. Cindy Etter-Turnbull (a.k.a. Mrs. Clothesline) shows how, for many people, the clothesline is not just a place to dry clothes, but a r...
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White Bicycles: The '60s In A Broken Mirror
Legendary producer Joe Boyd took an awful long time to get around to writing about his experiences in the 1960s music business recording the likes of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention. The wait has been wo...
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David Goodis Resurfaces in Soft Cover
David Goodis is one of the most intriguing of all serie noire writers. Best known for providing the source material for a string of fascinating movies - Truffaut’s early 1960s French New Wave masterpiece Shoot the Piano Player, the 1948 Bogart/Bacall vehicle ...
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Lockpick Pornography Opens Doors
Joey Comeau’s internet novel Lockpick Pornography is a genuine hit.
The Halifax author, still in his 20s, put up the first seven chapters of the book online for free. If you want to find out what happens in the end, you can purchase the final few chapters f...
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In Search of Risk: Author Michael Ungar
It’s very cold and blustery outside the night Michael Ungar is scheduled to speak at Fairview Junior High School in Halifax. Despite the weather, a group of attentive parents has gathered inside the school library to hear Ungar address the topic of his latest ...
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The Hovels and Hospitality of Nova Scotia
There is no enthusiasm for Nova Scotia like that of visiting friends and family from outside the province. They are amazed by the untamed, undeveloped land between the airport and Halifax, they love the short drives to the beaches and the variety of beautiful ...
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Garlic and Sapphires
I’ve been reading Ruth Reichl’s terrific book — Garlic and Sapphires — about her experiences as New York Times restaurant critic.
Reichl is refreshingly unpretentious and a fabulous writer. Just after she accepted her new gig, she discovers that restaurants...
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Hadley Dyer Talks About Kids Lit
Hadley Dyer is an active member of the Canadian Kids Lit scene. She grew up in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia and now lives in Toronto where she divides her time between writing, editing for James Lorimer & Company, and teaching. I had the chance to work ...
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Elaine McCluskey's fascinating but frustrating book The Watermelon Social
Elaine McCluskey’s debut collection of short stories published by Gaspereau Press presents readers with a unique problem: McCluskey is a terrific writer whose stories are terrible.
How is her writing so good? It’s vivid, poetic stuff, as if the contents of ...
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A Definitive Look At Lightkeeping
Chris Mills’ Lighthouse Legacies (Nimbus Publishing) is about as definitive as a book can get on the subject of Nova Scotia’s lighthouses.
Combining extensive oral histories with his own track record in the Coastal Service - on both the East Coast and in Br...
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The Island Of The Seven Cities
Yale-educated architect and teacher Paul Chiasson’s book, The Island Of The Seven Cities, is one of those rare tomes that could change the way we think about how North America was peopled.
His central thesis, that a massive Chinese City existed in Cape Bret...
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Beat Generation Icon's New Book Of Poetry
Beat Generation avatar Jack Kerouac’s estate continues to pour forth a steady stream of astonishing, previously unpublished material. Although the iconic author died in October 1969, he’s been more prolific lately than when he was alive.
In the last year al...
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Leonard Cohen Returns To Poetry
Leonard Cohen’s first book of new poetry in 22 years was released by his longtime publisher McLelland & Stewart on April 24th, 2006.
Book Of Longing, a 229-page collection of verse, drawings and a few longer prose pieces -- just happens to be Cohen’s best ...
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Noir Revival
Had all the Hammett you can handle? Reduced to reading Raymond Chandler’s letters? Tired of looking for hard-to-find used paperbacks of Cornell Woolrich’s I Married A Dead Man and W.R. Burnett’s The Ashpalt Jungle?
Then the new Hard Case Crime Series might ...
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