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BOOKS
The happy reader
Submitted by To Halifax and Gone on 08.27.08 at 6:54am.
Among the dozen or so books I read “on assignment” each month, I expect to find the occasional total gem, one that is not only written beautifully, with an engaging narrative, but isn’t on a topic I’d consider choosing if left to my own discretion in a library or bookstore.
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Anne of Green Gables and Evelyn Nesbit
Submitted by Crooked House on 08.25.08 at 7:21am.
Once of the many interesting things I learned from Irene Gammel's excellent Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic is just how much Montgomery was influenced by the magazines of her day. In fact, the model that Montgomery used for Anne's face was this photograph ...
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Le Weekend
Submitted by Chasing Waterfalls on 08.25.08 at 7:23am.
It was a very quiet weekend, but that’s exactly what I needed. By Friday, I was pretty much exhausted and depleted of energy. When Tammy was leaving work on Friday afternoon, just a few minutes before me, she invited me to join her at her son’s last soccer game.
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Prose: Review of Who Can Save Us Now?, By Johnathan
Submitted by Paul and John Review on 08.20.08 at 12:30pm.
Took advantage of being home sick to finish reading Who Can Save Us Now?, which I mentioned in my first review of prose way back when.
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The Shipwreck, the Sultan, and the Slave: A Tale of Sixteenth Century Constantinople
Submitted by Linda Liebenberg on 08.16.08 at 8:07am.
Book Review: The Aviary Gate, by Katie Hickman
The intriguing sixteenth century tale of Celia Lamprey is researched by the twenty-first century doctoral student Elizabeth in The Aviary Gate. Set in the world of merchant-rich Istanbul, sightings are reported of the sea captain Thomas Lam...
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Good for Random House
Submitted by Daimnation on 08.9.08 at 7:30am.
...not because they've decided against publishing a novel some Muslims may find offensive, but because they're openly and honestly explaining their decision:
Publisher Random House has pulled a novel about the Prophet Mohammed's child bride, fearing it could "incite acts of violence."
"The Jewe...
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A giant is gone
Submitted by Daimnation! on 08.4.08 at 7:32am.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.
Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died...
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All Souls, by Christine Schutt: an excerpt
Submitted by Nicholas Graham on 07.29.08 at 8:33am.
The Girl No One Knows
Fathers
Mr. Dell, in his daughter’s room, stuck his face into the horn of a stargazer lily, one of a . . . one of a . . . must have been a dozen, and he breathed in and said wasn’t that something. And wasn’t it: the pileup of cards, a stuffed bear, a bouquet of balloons, a...
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Anne of Green Gables Roundup
Submitted by Crooked House on 07.28.08 at 6:41am.
In this Newsweek article about the 100th anniversary of the publication of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, journalist Ramin Setoodeh deplores the sorry state of children's literature today (in a lame "these kids today" move if ever I saw one) and Trinna Frever, an Anne scholar, asserts t...
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Caroline and the Lake Dwellers of Ron More Skerry
Submitted by To Halifax and Gone Weblog on 07.26.08 at 8:33am.
A trio of books I have unearthed this week are standouts from my earliest book-acquiring days. Somehow, through all the moves I made both in childhood and since –and there were more than half a dozen before I started school, more than three times that in adulthood–a cloth book from infancy still...
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The Valley: An Excerpt
Submitted by Nicholas Graham on 07.23.08 at 1:01pm.
The following is an excerpt from the beginning of The Valley, by Gayle Friesen, published by Key Porter Books.
In God’s green pastures feeding, by the cool waters lie. Soft
in the evening . . . then something I don’t remember.
Waters cool, that was the girls’ part, in the Valley was the
b...
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The Valley, by Gayle Friesen: A review
Submitted by Lynn Lethbridge on 07.22.08 at 6:53pm.
The Valley, by Gayle Friesen is a pleasant summer read. It seems odd to write that as I think about the subjects and themes covered in the book: strained relationships, religious intolerance, debilitating migraines, suicidal thoughts, and a multitude of Biblical allusions. Even the title itself a...
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All Souls: Astra's World
Submitted by Jera Yin on 07.22.08 at 8:09am.
An Elemental Response to All Souls
This is my first ever formal book review and as such I revert to the elemental tools of every writer, the alphabet. I use an “ABC” rubric to provide a frame of reference for consideration of my response to the book.
The book is All Souls – a work of fict...
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Bookworm
Submitted by A Night at the Opera on 07.18.08 at 8:47am.
A few months ago I made a resolution to read one book a week that I wasn't ashamed to tell people about, that I could discuss at cocktail parties in the Hamptons and gallery openings on the Upper East, that I didn't feel the need to keep at the very bottom of the pile of tomes sitting on my floor.
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The August 2008 Issue of O And Oprah's Messiah Dress
Submitted by Crooked House on 07.17.08 at 8:45am.
I've started buying Oprah's magazine -- I like the Books section, especially the "Books That Made a Difference" feature, where a celebrity of some kind talks about her favourite ones. And recently there have been some essays and articles by writers I admire, often surprising ones like George Saun...
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Five books about Anne of Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery
Submitted by Mary Helleiner on 07.10.08 at 9:15am.
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 the 1930’s and 40’s, however, the excit...
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Who Owns Canada Now: Canada's mega-rich
Submitted by Michael Bradfield on 07.10.08 at 9:44am.
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 entrepreneurial and therefore more success...
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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 relatively high degree of foreign owners...
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Good books–open minds
Submitted by To Halifax and Gone on 07.10.08 at 6:32am.
I’m in another spate of good books. Posy Simmonds’ new one, Tamara Drewe, sends chills while being both delightfully arch and wholly credible. And I’ve just begun Ancient Highway (Brett Lott) and am enjoying the language and the revisit of Hollywood (always better in a book than with my body).
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The Popularity of Chick Lit
Submitted by Behind The Scenes on 07.8.08 at 7:29am.
I’ve recently discovered that I am a fan of Chick Lit. Not because it is Chick Lit, but because I am drawn to the frank writing style and wittiness, mostly. After finishing Jennifer Weiner’s Good In Bed, I knew I would be love to read anything else written by her, and then I realized other book...
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Perfect Bookmarks
Submitted by Crooked House on 07.4.08 at 5:18am.
Leila the librarian behind Bookshelves of Doom found an emery board -- evidently it had been used as a bookmark -- inside a Barbara Taylor Bradford book called Heir. I, and at least one other person who commented, thought from her photograph that it was a pregnancy test.
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Catons Island; an excerpt from Steve Vernon's Wicked Woods
Submitted by Nicholas Graham on 06.29.08 at 12:20pm.
This is an excerpt from Wicked Woods, by Steve Vernon and published in 2008 by Nimbus Press.
There Will Be Blood
Catons Island
In the first month of 1611, a pair of Jesuit missionaries, Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse, set sail from France and arrived at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the ...
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Mystery on Fifth Avenue
Submitted by Crooked House on 06.28.08 at 8:59am.
An architectural designer called Eric Clough takes a wealthy client's fanciful request to hide a poem about his family in the walls of his New York apartment (during its renovation) to extremes -- he develops an elaborate hidden mystery, complete with cryptic puzzles, secret compartments, pop-out...
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Wicked Woods: Is New Brunswick haunted?
Submitted by Margaret Foster on 06.26.08 at 6:45am.
Who isn’t scared walking alone in the deep woods? We tell ghost stories around the campfire in an attempt to make some sense of our fear and horror of the unknown.
Steve Vernon’s collection of ghost stories from New Brunswick includes spellbinding tales of jealousy, loss, and betrayal. New Bru...
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Hans Christian Andersen's Paper Cuttings and Children's Literature Inspired Travel
Submitted by Crooked House on 06.13.08 at 5:39am.
This tiny paper rocking chair was made over 125 years ago by Hans Christian Andersen. Apparently he used to construct elaborate paper cuttings while telling his stories. You can view some of them in the Digital Collections of the Odense City Museums site.
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A code to crack from Pulitzer winner Brooks
Submitted by Erin Casey on 06.12.08 at 12:03pm.
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 many ways a standard literary mystery/...
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13 Reasons to Read Loyalists and Layabouts by Stephen Kimber
Submitted by Mind Over Matter on 05.29.08 at 6:37am.
Once upon a time, twenty-three years ago actually, I worked as the daytime babysitter for Stephen and Jeannie Kimber. At the time he was a journalism professor at the University of King's College in Halifax, and together they also published a magazine called Cities.
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The Lolita Effect
Submitted by Smart Like Streetcar on 05.29.08 at 5:43am.
Dr. Gigi Durham has written a book called The Lolita Effect, The Media Sexualization of Girls and What We Can Do About It.
For reasons that are very near and dear to our hearts, Tempest and I have read several books that talk about teenage sexuality, body image, the mass media, and major depress...
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The Queen has a slight cold
Submitted by Nicholas Graham on 04.27.08 at 1:02pm.
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 novel, also deals with a monarch who is ...
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Cause(way) and Effect
Submitted by Keith McPhail on 04.23.08 at 12:53pm.
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 the voice of his younger self to narrat...
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Halifax lawyer Anne Emery chases mystery with prose
Submitted by Margaret Foster on 04.8.08 at 12:53pm.
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.
In The Sign of the Cross, he is ret...
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Katherine Barber: Facts about the Language from Canada’s Word Lady
Submitted by Christopher Helleiner on 03.30.08 at 1:22pm.
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 radio and television.
Barber is c...
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Norman Mailer, Author, Director 1923-2007
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.12.07 at 1:04pm.
The various tributes and obituaries of the great American writer and gadfly Norman Mailer have failed, for the most part, to mention two aspects of his extraordinary contribution to the world of discourse and culture.
Along with his more obvious literary work, Mailer co-founded and co-financed...
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Jack Kerouac: 50 Years Of The Beat Generation
Submitted by filmguy on 09.4.07 at 7:30pm.
50 years after the rave review in The New York Times that officially launched his literary career, Jack Kerouac seems to be everywhere. It was September 5th, 1957, that Gilbert Millstein announced that On The Road (The Viking Press) was as important to the emerging ‘Beat’ generation as Hemingway ...
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Paul Auster: The Brooklyn Follies
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.27.07 at 7:01pm.
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 work by profiling lonely outsiders, us...
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Cornell Woolrich Returns With Fright
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.18.07 at 5:32pm.
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 was William Irish).
Woolrich’s he...
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Book Vs Film: Gods And Monsters
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.9.07 at 7:38pm.
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 a chance to compare the two.
The ...
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Atlantic Summer Reading Guide
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 07.6.07 at 7:21pm.
If you didn't get this year's Atlantic Summer Reading Guide in the Globe or the Herald, check it out at the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association website:
www.atlanticpublishers.ca
It's full of great new and classic titles from Atlantic Canadian publishers and there's something for ever...
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Fine Lines: Clothesline Culture
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 06.30.07 at 7:21pm.
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 rich source of memories, an invitation...
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Feast and Famine in the Vagrant Revue
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 06.25.07 at 11:03am.
In her Coda to The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, editor Sandra McIntyre stresses the importance of the reader’s freedom to roam within an anthology. The Revue is a collection of short stories written by emerging writers from Atlantic Canada, and McIntyre puts the reader in control, encouraging “r...
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White Bicycles: The '60s In A Broken Mirror
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 06.22.07 at 1:55pm.
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 worth it. His book, White Bicycles, is ...
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Frank Ledwell's Story Brook
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 06.15.07 at 8:07pm.
Frank Ledwell is now in his third year as P.E.I’s second Poet Laureate. It’s no surprise that The Taste of Water starts and ends at home in P.E.I., but Ledwell varies his discussion of home considerably, moving from sketches of local personalities to discussions of a more widespread feeling of be...
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The Wound and the Slain
AN EXCERPT
At the other end of the bar it was crowded, and at this end he stood alone, drinking a gin-and-tonic. They made a very good gin-and-tonic at the Laurel Rock, but he wasn’t getting any taste out of it. As a matter of fact, he thought, you’re not getting any taste out of anythi...
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David Goodis Resurfaces in Soft Cover
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.29.07 at 5:44pm.
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 Dark Passage, and Jacques Tourneur’s ...
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Atlantic Book Award nominees announced
Atlantic Canada's leading authors are visiting communities around the region for a reading or special event during the Atlantic Book Festival, May 5 - 12th.
The Atlantic Book Awards ceremony takes place at Pier 21 on Friday, May 11.
Readers will spend an evening in Saint John with three poe...
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Samuel Fuller's 'A Third Face'
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 04.4.07 at 11:34pm.
There are only a handful of truly great memoirs in the cinema. Chaplin’s My Autobiography is one, going from the Dickensian misery of London’s Poor Houses to the status of an international icon. Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Lantern is another, full of vivid remembrances of a life in theatre and fil...
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Fluff Fest
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 04.2.07 at 11:04pm.
I am generally of the “If you can’t say anything nice…” school of writing, and therefore I hesitate to go into too much detail about the final reading of the 2007 Halifax International Writer’s Festival. But it can be painful to keep horrible events to yourself. ...
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Diverse Voices at the Writer’s Fest
Submitted by Brainfood on 04.1.07 at 9:43pm.
On Friday night at the Lord Nelson Hotel, four incredibly diverse writers gathered to read for a full house. Agnes Walsh, Stephanie Domet, Lorri Neilsen Glenn and Tanya Davis were reading, and the group truly offered something for everyone.
Agnes Walsh, who read first, is the poet laureate f...
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Better Than Blonde
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 03.25.07 at 1:40pm.
If you felt tortured by the popularity and all-around superiority of a clique of giggling Blondes in High school, you might not recognize the light-headed leaders of Teresa Toten’s Me and the Blondes. For starters, the Blondes are nice. And smart. And, we are forced to realize, quite human, with ...
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Donovan's Memoir Brings Back '60s
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.25.07 at 1:07pm.
Once considered the flakiest of ‘60s singer/songwriters, British musician Donovan - perhaps the first to be known by a single name only along with Cher and Melanie - has again followed in Bob Dylan’s footsteps by releasing a vivid volume of memoirs.
The Autobiography of Donovan: The Hurdy Gurd...
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Expanding the Borders: Cormac McCarthy & Calexico
Submitted by Neil Terry on 03.21.07 at 3:04pm.
Quite often, images in film and their accompanying musical scores become inseparable in popular consciousness. Take, for example, Strauss’ stately “The Blue Danube” and the approaching spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dick Dale’s rapid-fire “Miserlou” punctuating Pulp Fiction’s opening credits...
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Doctors' Notes and Medical Mystery Novels
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 03.17.07 at 12:10pm.
Many great writers have also been Doctors; John Keats, Anton Chekhov, and William Carlos Willliams are just a few of the more recognizable names. Lately, however, as the medical world becomes increasingly a part of popular culture (see ER, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Phil, Dr. Marla Shapiro), we ...
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Lockpick Pornography Opens Doors
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.18.07 at 12:17pm.
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 from the web.
I bought a copy the o...
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In Search of Risk: Author Michael Ungar
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 03.10.07 at 3:47pm.
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 book, Too Safe for Their Own Good, wh...
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Daniel MacIvor's Governor General Winning Book Is A Hard Slog
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 03.6.07 at 4:03pm.
There’s no question that Cape Bretoner Daniel MacIvor is considered to be one of Canada’s most important theatre artists. The fact that he recently won a Governor General’s Award for his five-play collection entitled I Still Love You pretty well confirm’s the actor and writer’s near-iconic status...
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Canada's New Yorkers
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 03.3.07 at 11:16pm.
It’s more than a little dangerous, especially among Can Lit scholars, to suggest that Canadian Literature was started in the U.S. Yet that is exactly what Nick Mount does in his provocative study When Canadian Literature Moved to New York.
While many may imagine Canadian poetry growing out of...
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Literary Artifacts You Should Know About
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 02.23.07 at 1:16pm.
Many people have never had the chance to spend time in a rare books room, or in the Public Archives. With this feature, I hope to bring attention to several of the rare books and interesting literary artifacts that can be found, and accessed by anyone, within libraries and archives in and around ...
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A Writer's Remorse: Alice Munro's The View From Castle Rock
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 02.16.07 at 11:24pm.
Alice Munro has been dealing with writer’s remorse throughout her career. Not that she’s overcome with remorse—on the surface it’s just the opposite. She is playful and ironic, and most of the stories in The View From Castle Rock are about playing with and eventually breaking this sense of guilt ...
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Elizabeth Bachinsky's Home of Sudden Service
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 02.9.07 at 11:41pm.
The cover blurb of Home of Sudden Service calls attention to the gritty and startling side of Elizabeth Bachinsky’s poems, labelling her work “Valley Gothic” made of “punk rock villanelles and delinquent sonnets.” These descriptions make great cover copy, but they don’t do justice to the depth of...
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White Man's Cotten good grist for a movie
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 02.10.07 at 2:24pm.
White Man’s Cotton represents an interesting attempt by Newfoundland’s Jesperson Publishing to broaden its range into the world of contemporary, edgy thrillers.
The first novel by St. John’s bureaucrat and union rep Randy W. Somerton, the book begins with an audacious and utterly original scen...
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Charles Dickens in Halifax
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 02.9.07 at 5:01pm.
This is an excerpt from Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion; Over 300 Years of Travel Writing, edited by Lesley Choyce and published in 2005 by Pottersfield Press.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
Halifax - 1842
Born at Portsmouth, England, in 1812, Dickens went on to become one of his country...
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Page to Stage: Mourning Dove Plays at Neptune
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 02.2.07 at 10:32pm.
Mourning Dove is a difficult play with roots in the story of Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy in 1993. It was originally written for broadcast on CBC radio’s Morningside, and will be playing at Neptune Theatre in Halifax between February 13 a...
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Driving Minnie’s Piano
In this introduction to his memoirs, Lesley Choyce touches on several themes that the succeeding chapters will develop, including the importance of understanding place in life and in writing, surfing and the Zen philosophy, and the memories and music of his grandmother Minnie.
INTRODUCTION<...
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Book vs Film: Book Wins
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.19.06 at 12:00pm.
Filmmaker Todd Field’s follow-up to his acclaimed literary adaptation In The Bedroom is an even more ambitious adult drama. This time he’s tackled American satirical novelist Tom Perotta’s 2001 suburban angst 'n-adultery book, Little Children. Perotta is best known for another volume transformed ...
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The Hovels and Hospitality of Nova Scotia
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 01.19.07 at 10:35pm.
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 scenery to be found within such a sma...
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Garlic and Sapphires
Submitted by A Moveable Feast on 01.19.07 at 11:01am.
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 are already on the lookout for her a...
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Johnny Kellock Died Today - An Excerpt
Rosalie Norman is a twelve-year-old artist and budding detective. Against her mother’s wishes, she has been spending her Summer mornings inside, drawing from old photographs which are strictly off-limits.
As chapter two opens, Mama has slipped on some pencils Rosalie carelessly left on the st...
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Lost crime novel surfaces by author of To Catch a Thief
Submitted by filmguy on 12.31.06 at 12:27pm.
Canadians might be forgiven if they think the only David Dodge worth thinking about is the current head of this country’s Federal Bank.
There's another David Dodge of note, and his name has resurfaced lately, even though he passed away in 1974 after a long, varied and productive life as a Char...
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Mark Leggott: In praise of slow libraries
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 12.5.06 at 10:14pm.
Many of you will have heard of the Slow Food movement. It began in Italy in reaction to the many drawbacks of fast food and has spread since the publication of Carl Honoré’s book In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Changing the Cult of Speed. As Slow Food activists see it, fast food is...
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Hadley Dyer Talks About Kids Lit
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 11.23.06 at 8:08pm.
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 with her last year and found her to b...
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Before The Cameras
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 11.22.06 at 3:43pm.
Seeing Maritimes CTV News anchor Steve Murphy on the cover of both The Coast and Frank magazines last month was unnecessary, to say the least.
The guy’s on TV every night for the three province’s most authoritative newscast, for gosh sakes. Couldn’t we see someone else on the front of an alter...
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Johnny Kellock Died Today
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 11.20.06 at 8:43pm.
Hadley Dyer’s Johnny Kellock Died Today is set in the historic North End of Halifax in the Summer of 1959, and it is a thoroughly original story, at turns funny and dark. Halifax readers, in particular, will appreciate the vivid sketches of the city’s landmarks.
The narrative is part detecti...
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Elaine McCluskey's fascinating but frustrating book The Watermelon Social
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 10.31.06 at 3:18pm.
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 20 years of notebooks have been dumpe...
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Finalists for the GG's literary awards announced
Submitted by Hannah Colville on 10.17.06 at 2:44pm.
On Monday, the list of finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards was released. It is always nice to see some new names on the list, and this year 36 of the authors short-listed are finalists for the first time.
Local authors who made the list include Daniel MacIvor, for the collecti...
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A Definitive Look At Lightkeeping
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 08.22.06 at 4:39pm.
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 British Columbia - Mills’ obsession wit...
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The Island Of The Seven Cities
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 07.21.06 at 4:55pm.
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 Breton in the 14th and 15th Centuries, is...
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Beat Generation Icon's New Book Of Poetry
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.31.06 at 1:40pm.
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 alone his only play--called The Beat Ge...
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Leonard Cohen Returns To Poetry
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.11.06 at 4:52pm.
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 tome since 1964’s Flowers For Hitler....
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Noir Revival
Submitted by Ron Foley Macdonald on 05.10.06 at 4:02pm.
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 just be what you’re looking for.
I...
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