Posted in books, fiction, reviews, tagged book review, Nino ricci, The Origin of Species on August 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
A review of The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci
The Origin of Species captured the 2008 Governor Generals Literary Award for fiction (the second such win for Ricci, the first being his 1993 debut Lives of the Saints). It was a well-deserved honour. This dense, multi-faceted, sprawling, and thought-provoking tome explores the ideas of evolution, [...]
Posted in books, fiction, reviews, tagged David Wroblewski, Edgar Sawtelle on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A review of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
There has been a lot of hype around this debut novel by David Wroblewski, with comparisons to the classic American writers of the mid 1900s, and suggestions of the emergence of a new Steinbeck. Unfortunately, the excessive praise showered upon this work create unreasonable expectations [...]
Posted in books, tagged John Updike on January 29, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Like many booklovers around the world, I am saddened by the news that John Updike has passed away at 76 from lung cancer (see the New York Times obituary). He was my favourite modern author, one whose intricate fictions captured the spirit (the good, the bad, and the ugly) of the post-war American middle classes.
One [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged architecture, concrete, determinism, Mark Kingwell, mind/body problem, New York, Oedipus, Shanghai, totalitarianism, urbanism on December 4, 2008 | 3 Comments »
A review of Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City by Mark Kingwell. Viking Canada: 2008.
The latest book by noted philosopher and public intellectual Mark Kingwell is an unique examination at how the structure of the modern city moulds the conscience and its interactions within society, and likewise how the modern city can be represented as [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen on December 2, 2008 | 3 Comments »
A review of Atmospheric Disturbances: A Novel, by Rivka Galchen. Harper Collins Canada, 2008.
This debut novel by Rivka Galchen opens with the realization by the middle-aged psychologist Leo Liebenstein that his wife Rema has been replaced by an identical double:
Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.
And so begins the [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged Cockroach, Giller Prize, Rawi Hage on November 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
A review of Cockroach by Rawi Hage. House of Anansi Press. Toronto: 2008
Rawi Hage’s second novel Cockroach takes place during a frigid Montreal winter and details the picaresque adventures of an unnamed protagonist, a recent immigrant from the Middle East and self-professed thief who often envisions himself as a giant cockroach. Hage is the recent [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged debt, Faust, Margaret Atwood, Massey Lectures, Scrooge on November 14, 2008 | 4 Comments »
A review of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood. Toronto: Anansi. 2008.
Given the current worldwide economic malaise, it appears rather prescient that the 2008 Massey Lectures address the subject of debt. In these lectures, Margaret Atwood examines of the concept of debt as a motif in human society, particularly through an [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged book review, Giller Prize, Mary Swan on November 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A review of The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan (2008).
There has been a recent trend among some journalists in Canada to reflexively dismiss what has been termed, often derisively, as “Canadian gothic.” Although the term is vague and not precisely defined, it is essentially accepted as dark, tragic, nineteenth-century rural Canadian narrative (for example, [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged book review, history of mathematics, Roman Kaluza, Stefan Banach on October 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A review of Through a reporter’s eyes: The life of Stefan Banach by Roman Kaluza. Translated and edited by Ann Kostant and Wojbor Woyczynski. Boston: Birkhaüser, 1996.
In the preface to this book, Roman Kaluza states that “this book contains little of mathematical character,” and hence this is not a work on the important mathematical developments [...]
Posted in books, reviews, tagged governance, oil industry, reviews, William Marsden on September 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Review of Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn’t Seem to Care). Knopf Canada: 2007.
William Marsden is an author and investigative journalist who bravely took on the Hell’s Angels biker gang in a series of books and columns. Now he’s after a bigger, richer, and far more [...]
