Note from Editor Note from the Editor by Paul Stuewe Since 1995 looks to be the year when Internet connections and CD-ROM drives become standard household fixtures, we've decided to devote our March issue to the theme of `Writing on the Information Highway.' Read more... |
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Book Review The Mulroney Legacy by Brian Fawcett Every decent citizen left in this country ought to buy or borrow this book, read it cover to cover, and then have a long cold look in the political and moral mirror. It will, I warn, be a sobering, and quite possibly embarrassing experience. Read more...
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Book Review Approaching Epiphany by Kevin Connolly Despair is the most accomplished and original first book of stories by a young Canadian writer to come along in quite some time. Read more...
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| The Trickster by Jean-Francois Lisee, 400 pages $24.95 TP ISBN: 1550284665
| Book Review Up to No Good by David Homel What's missing in this English version is Bourassa himself, the central enigma of the story, Lisee's despicable clown. Perhaps he got lost in the abridgement. Read more...
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Book Review All about Love by Eileen Manion Almost to the end of the novel, Monique Proulx maintains some of the suspense she builds up concerning the interrelationships of her characters. I read it with the intense commitment and absorption of a whodunit. Read more...
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Book Review The Art of Pilgrimage by Allan Casey Paul Roberts's unflinchingly brave cross-examination of India's elite and the humanist rapport he establishes with the country's average citizens makes for a penetrating portrait of this often shadowy soul empire. Read more...
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Book Review Demands for Treatment by Ellen Roseman Women are writing diaries, memoirs, and autobiographical accounts of dealing with breat cancer, the debilitating treatments, and the sometimes helpful, sometimes horrified reactions of family and friends. Read more...
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Book Review Love Which is Insight by George Elliott Clarke Her voice -- succinct, lyrically accented, love-and anger-tinted -- seeps too deeply inside the flesh to allow anyone the luxury of forgetfulness. Read more...
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Book Review A Canaidan Way of Death by Fraser Sutherland In Davey's view, disingenuous media latched on to a Gothic plot -- monstrous villains, martyred virgins -- to tell a story. Davey also relates this to a supposedly systemic misogyny in society that turns men to anger and women to self-hatred. Read more...
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| Burden of Dreams by Anne Hebert, Sheila Fischman, 166 pages $22.95 CT ISBN: 088784166X
| Book Review A Choice of Lovers by Anne Denoon The book's structure is deceptively simple: in present tense throughout and organized in brief vignettes, it evokes both the immediacy of dreams and the disorder of memory, without obstructing the inexorable progress of the narrative. Read more...
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Book Review An Irish Iconoclast by C Fox It's interesting to imagine what might have happened on the volatile Quebec scene of the 1970s if that gadfly Conor Cruise O'Brien had seized the opportunity offered to him in 1969 to head what was then Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Read more...
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Book Review Home and Away by Libby Scheier Another thread running through many of the stories is the traditional -- and oppressive -- situation of Southeast Asian women in their own cultures. Read more...
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Book Review When Faith Was in Favour by Dennison Berwick Providence is out of favour at the moment, but there was a time, especially in the 19th century, when Europeans unquestioningly believed in a divine grace directing the events of their lives. Read more...
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Book Review Mixing Up the Message by Allan Levine Canadian editors and journalists clearly have a lot to answer for. But will this book or any other significant commentary make a difference? Bain is not overly optimistic, and rightly so. Read more...
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Interviews Detecting the Truth by Nancy Wigston The award-winning biographer Phyllis Grosskurth's latest project has her romantically involved with Lord Byron. Read more...
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Letters to Editor Letters to the Editor Philosophically, I agree with Givner that contests should encourage new writers and the fees shouldn't be so high as to prevent writers submitting. Read more...
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Prose/Poetry The Glass-Bottom Boat by Olive Senior He sat in his chair in the little living room from which he could look directly at her in the bedroom and, watching her, he wondered at all her busyness nowadays with pots and jars and lotions when so little result was obtained. Read more...
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Prose/Poetry The Line by Dana Tierny This year's judges awarded the first-place prize of $2,500 to "The Line," a short-fiction piece by Dana P. Tierney. Books in Canada is pleased to publish the winning entry. Read more...
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Profiles Closer to Home by John Degen Olive Senior's detailed evocations of place are intended for everyone. Read more...
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Grammar Girl Laying Down the Law by Rose Thorne There's no stopping a word when it wants to change its meaning, and 'peculiar' has been overpowered by its own peculiarity. Read more...
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Up Front Up Front - Under the Influence by Barbara Carey I'll continue to be interested in knowing admired authors' favourite books, past and present, but just out of curiosity. How a writer's imagination is shaped is, finally, mysterious. Read more...
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Opinion Juries on Trial by Elisabeth Harvor The Governor General's Awards in particular seem to symbolize a sort of parental approval. Perhaps this is why the decisions of GG jurors arouse such intense outrage. Read more...
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First Novels First Novels - Drawing the Lines by Maureen Garvie All of this issue's books tend to give rise to speculations on the boundaries between life and fiction, and the point at which the writer has chosen to draw the line. Read more...
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Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Poetry by Bruce Whiteman Inventive this writing is, I suppose, and its satirical edge is clear. But a whole book of it is too much. Rosenblatt is one of our most eccentric poets, and bless him for it. Read more...
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Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Poetry by Tim Bowling Most readers of poetry understand instinctively that the highest achievements in the genre are reached when emotion meets craft, when something worth saying is said in a memorable way. Read more...
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| Near Death by Nancy Kilpatrick, Rebecca Todd, 304 pages $6.99 MM ISBN: 067188090X
| Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Fiction by George Kaufman In spite of the fact that the climactic showdown is a bit of a letdown, actionwise, by the end of this crazy, violent journey across North America, most members of the modem vampire-tale cult should find that their lust for blood has been sated. Read more...
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| Nehanda by Yvonne Vera, pages $12.95 TP ISBN: 0920661416
| Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Fiction by Hazelle Palmer This is a beautifully written novel. Vera's poetic, mystical style carries you from the Africans' passionate fight to the strangers' mannered ambivalence. Read more...
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Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Non-fiction by R Vaughan Ultimately, 'On the Safe Edge' is the publishing equivalent of decriminalization. It will lead to a better understanding and acceptance of SM fans and fetishists. It may save lives. Read more...
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Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Non-fiction by William Christian Can the Tories recover from Kim Campbell? Only, David McLaughlin says in this elegant and well-crafted book, if they can persuade voters that there is some reason for the party's continued existence. Read more...
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Brief Reviews Brief Reviews - Non-fiction by John Parr A Writer's Life is an enjoyable, often Dickensian account of a lost boyhood, both sad and hilarious. Read more...
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| Rosalie's Catastrophes by Ginette Anfousse, Demco Media pages $8.7 TC ISBN: 060609797X
| | School Stinks by Frank O'Keefe, 132 pages $5.95 TP ISBN: 077367294X
| | The Man Who Created Narnia The Story of C. S. Lewis by Michael Coren, William B.\Eerdmans#Publishing Company 151 pages $22 TC ISBN: 0802838227
| | | A Prairie Year by Jo Bannatyne-Cugnet, Yvette Moore, 32 pages $16.95 TC ISBN: 0887763340
| | Starshine at Camp Crescent Moon by Ellen Schwartz, 160 pages $8.95 TP ISBN: 0919591027
| | Dragon in the Clouds by Rosemary Nelson, 160 pages $6.95 TP ISBN: 0929141229
| | | A Light in Space by Wendy Orr, Ruth Ohi, Ruth Ohi, 124 pages $14.95 LB ISBN: 1550373684
| | A Pioneer Story The Daily Life of a Canadian Family in 1840 by Barbara Greenwood, Heather Collins, 240 pages $16.95 TP ISBN: 1550741284
| | Witches, Ghosts & Loups-Garous by Joan Finnigan, pages $14.95 TP ISBN: 1550820869
| Children's Books Children's Books - The Lion, the Alien, and the Pioneers by Allison Sutherland A sound biography of a great children's writer. A rising SF star. A tasty slice of Quebecois life. And a fine book of do-it-yourself pioneering. Four for the read. Read more...
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At Large At Large - Who Stole Reviewing? by Michael Coren What this feminist author does is to tear away at the foundations of victimology, that chimera upon which the entire industries of fraudulent statistics, false accusations, and radical political agendas are so frequently based. Read more...
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Douglas Fetherling Douglas Fetherling - A Forum for Interviews by Douglas Fetherling As an interviewer, Kirkwood has a wonderfully quirky style, and 'Between the Lines' is generally a delight to read, despite some editing errors. Read more...
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