| Book Review Clubbable Tales
by Donna Nurse
Often while writing book reviews I find myself referring to my notes from Professor Vicari's fourth-year course on the history of literary criticism, particularly her comments on Sir Philip Sidney's influential An Apologie for Poetrie.
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| Book Review An Heiress & a Hall of Fame
by I. M. Owen
Alison Gordon lately explored Saskatchewan, and the result is Prairie Hardball, in which Kate Henry, who was born there, revisits it in order to see her mother and other former players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
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| Book Review To The Rescue of Rubber
by Brian Brett
One of the delights of our literature in recent years has been its expanding range. Not only are small Ontario towns explored, but also floating teapots and cabbages off coastal Ireland, the winds of North African deserts.
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| Book Review Quebec, with an Even Hand
by Peter McFarlane
For English Canadian writers, covering the political landscape of Quebec has its perils. Most begin with the unspoken assumptions that Canada is the best country in the world (the United Nations even said so).
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| Book Review Unidentified Periscopes
by Kenneth Sherman
The publication of a complete and recent collection of Tomas Tranströmer's poems, in English translation, is a just cause for celebration.
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| Book Review Glasnost at Ontario Bar
by Michael Fitz-James
In spite of its unwieldy title, and the fact that this book is fundamentally an exercise in vanity publishing by the Law Society of Upper Canada, Christopher Moore still manages to show a balanced and independent view of the Ontario lawyers' government.
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| Book Review Out of Guyana
by Belinda Beaton
As he looks on the last twelve months, Cyril Dabydeen has every reason to be pleased. Ottawa's former poet laureate has produced a new collection of his own poems, Discussing Columbus. He has also edited an anthology of poetry, Another Way to Dance.
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| Book Review Baroque Balkans
by Derek Lundy
If we think Bosnia has been bad, wait until the southern Balkans explode. That's Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Kosova, and Bulgaria. The status quo there is "unjust and unstable", Fred Reed believes.
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| Book Review Should Never Be Forgot
by Hugh Graham
"The tongue of man never delivered, the ear of man never heard, the heart of man never conceived, or the malice of hellish or earthly devil never practised.." Such were the words used at the trial of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators.
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| Book Review Opening Country Closets
by Helen Forsey
It's an article of faith in many rural communities that the local citizenry is straight. Big cities, we concede, tolerate some pretty weird lifestyles, but out our way, all of us are safely heterosexual.
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| Book Review Good-Boy Rogue
by Ray Robertson
While in no way a veritable picaro (literally, Spanish for "rogue"), Andrew Halfnight, the shy, selfconscious, and very unrogue-like protagonist of Eric McCormack's new novel does fulfil two basic requirements of the picaresque hero: Andrew's
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| Book Review For Strong Stomachs
by Nora Abercrombie
The four stories contained in The Great Misogynist are so infused with perversion and violence that I marvel at Kenneth Harvey's stamina. He must have swallowed anti-nausea pills at an alarming rate to keep himself from retching while he wrote.
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| Book Review Everyday Nightmares
by John Ayre
Although Timothy Findley's first two story collections, Dinner along the Amazon and Stones did well critically, he has remained altogether casual about writing and publishing stories.
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| Book Review Likes & Dislikes & Gods
by Helen Hacksel
If you are looking for deep philosophical or psychological insights from this collection of interviews with twenty-eight writers and other artists, you probably won't find them.
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| Book Review Red Bricks & Bright Glass
by John Ferguson
Jack Diamond was a breath of fresh air in Toronto when he opened an architectural practice in 1968. At times, he was a gust, and even periodically a gale.
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| Interviews Illusions & Lies - Keath Fraser, interviewed by Michael Carbert
by Michael Carbert
Since his debut in fiction with Taking Cover in 1982, Keath Fraser has established a reputation as a sophisticated writer of absorbing, intricately crafted short stories and novellas.
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| Interviews Directing, Plus Midwifery - interview with children's book editors
by Frieda Wishinsky
As a writer, I am enormously grateful for a good editor. An editor is my liaison to a publishing house, my book's champion, and my partner in rewriting. An editor helps me keep my words focused and clear, my characters strong and
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| Interviews The Defector - a chat with Bruce McCall
by Phil Surguy
As the writer-illustrator Bruce McCall reveals in this memoir, his humour is not a lot of random fun. It is a manifestation of the pain and confusion of his youth in Simcoe (Ontario), Toronto.
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| Interviews And, Even More, the Overpainter - Robin Roger talks with Jane Urquhart
by Robin Roger
"He stored the Divine Light in a Vessel, but the Vessel, unable to contain the Holy Radiance, burst, and its shards, permeated with sparks of the Divine, scattered through the Universe."
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| Letters to Editor To the Editor
I wish to convey a minor note to the readers of BiC. It has more to do with arithmetic than Michael Coren's vexatious use of hyperbole, although in this case, the two are joined at the metaphysical navel
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| Essays Nesting on the Cliff
This is the first in an irregular series of reviews of regional literary magazines in Canada.
A tickle-ace is a small, graceful gull known in Canada as a kittiwake. It spends its life at sea, but nests on Newfoundland cliffs.
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| Essays The Decline of Identity
"What annoys us is what helps us to define ourselves. Without upsets, no identity," - E. M. Cioran
"The Lord creates; man can recreate."- David Hume
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 | Angel Falls
by Tim Wynveen,
288 pages $19.95 TP
ISBN: 1550138715
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First Novels First Novels - What's with Young Men These Days?
by Eva Tihanyi
"What's important, especially in troubled times, is that we fashion a story, no matter how painful, that makes sense of our lives, a family testament that pushes back the darkness even a little and provides a guide for those who follow,"
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| First Novels First Novels - What's with Young Men These Days?
by Eva Tihanyi
Ray Robertson's Home Movies (Cormorant, 228 pages, $19.95 trade paper) also deals with a young man from a southern Ontario town who escapes to Toronto to become a successful musician. James Thompson, almost twenty-five, is a country and western
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 | Rare Birds
by Edward Riche,
272 pages $19.95 TP
ISBN: 0385256353
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First Novels First Novels - What's with Young Men These Days?
by Eva Tihanyi
Rare Birds (Doubleday Canada, 288 pages, $19.95 trade paper), by Edward Riche is, like Home Movies, a lightweight but entertaining book. Dave Purcell used to work for the Newfoundland fisheries department, but now is proud owner of and
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 | KM
by Kenneth Michaels, Karl Mearns,
Partners Publishers Group, Incorporated
pages $5.99 MM
ISBN: 1551971755
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First Novels First Novels - What's with Young Men These Days?
by Eva Tihanyi
Some might say the same about KM (Commonwealth, 432 pages, $7.99 paper), by Kenneth Michaels, the pen name for Karl Mearns, a Caledonia, Ontario antique dealer and athletic coach. KM is a coming-of-age story spanning two years in the life
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| First Novels First Novels - What's with Young Men These Days?
by Eva Tihanyi
Finally, there is Dying for Veronica (Insomniac, 224 pages, $18.99 trade paper), Matthew Remski's challenging novel of sex and religion-incest and Catholicism, specifically. Veronica is the unnamed narrator's older sister-the older sister from
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 | Face Off
by Chris Forsyth,
128 pages $8.95 TP
ISBN: 1550285246
|  | Camp All-Star
by Michael Coldwell,
pages $8.95 TP
ISBN: 1550285262
|  | Riding Scared
by Marion Crook,
128 pages $8.95 TP
ISBN: 1550285300
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Children's Books Children`s Books
by Gillian Chan
When I worked as a teacher-librarian, one of the most common questions that parents asked was how they could persuade their children to read more. Fighting back the urge to ask whether they were regular readers themselves, I usually replied that they
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| Children's Books Children`s Books
by Bern Martin
If Sheree Fitch's latest book were simply a collection of poems, then she would deserve and receive fair praise. The poems range from being playful and humorous to serious and sombre. The poems also range in strength; some are expressive in rhyme and mean
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 | Wolves
by Karen Dudley, Warren Clark,
64 pages $12.95 TP
ISBN: 0919879810
| | Giant Pandas
by Karen Dudley, Warren Clark,
64 pages $12.95 TP
ISBN: 091987987X
| | Gorillas
by Patricia Miller-Schroeder, Warren Clark,
64 pages $12.95 TP
ISBN: 0919879896
| | | Whooping Cranes
by Karen Dudley, Warren Clark,
64 pages $12.95 TP
ISBN: 0919879918
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Children's Books Children's Books
by Bruce Bartlett
This year the Calgary-based educational publisher Weigl is offering a delightful full-colour glossy twelve-book series, The Untamed World. (As well as the four reviewed here, the others in the series are Alligators & Crocodiles
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| Children's Books Children`s Books
by M Martin
Ask the nearest typical junior or senior high school student how their history studies are going and prepare for much rolling of eyes and gnashing of teeth. Listen carefully to your own barely masked tone of disappointment or disapproval in the face
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| Children's Books Children's Books
by Allison Sutherland
Children read non-fiction for many of the same reasons that they read other books -because it looks interesting. Or because they have read other things like it, enjoyed the experience, and want to get it again. Or because the book or topic
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| At Large At Large - Far from the Madding Crowd
by Michael Coren
Like so many of Canada's artistic jewels, Michael O'Brien and his works are not to be found in Toronto and are not regularly featured in the Globe and Mail or on the CBC. This author and painter is based in Combermere, in Ontario's
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| Douglas Fetherling Douglas Fetherling - Popular Mac-Paps
by Douglas Fetherling
The Spanish Civil War prefigured the Second World War in Europe not only in political terms but also in certain military ones. Spain is where democrats fought fascists in the unofficial opening-act of a much larger drama; it's also where
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