Book Reviews
Modern Viking
Howard Goldenthal
You have to cheer for a guy who chases his dream the way Thomas Evensen did. Four years ago, he set out to become the hero of his own Viking saga. But this epic ended in death, in cold crashing …
The Obsession: Tragedy in the North Atlantic by John Chipman (Viking Canada), 243 pages,$32 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Oh, Brother
Ian Daffern
Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow’s fiction used to read more like the accretion of ideas than novels, technological longings steps ahead of their time, whose narratives were an afterthought. …
LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow (Tor), 384 pages. $19.95 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
A page in the life of diarist Julie Doucet.
Book Reviews
Dear Diary
By DAVID SILVERBERG
Voyeurs, this one’s for you. Julie Doucet’s visual diary 365 Days is an intimate look into the minutiae of everything she went through over a full year. Every day’s rehashing is true and raw – no …
365 DAYS: A DIARY by Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly), 360 pages, $29.95 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Carey on
By Susan G. Cole
Sixties radicals driven underground isn’t exactly a fresh topic. Books by Marge Piercy and movies like Running On Empty have tracked the rebels whose political actions turned them into …
HIS ILLEGAL SELF by Peter Carey (Random House), 272 pages, $32 cloth.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
The science of sex
By Joseph Wilson
In her third book, science writer Mary Roach moves away from her previous fixation with death (Spook, Stiff) to the topic of sex. She has a very casual style of writing, yet it lends itself well to …
BONK: THE CURIOUS COUPLING OF SCIENCE AND SEX by Mary Roach (W.W. Norton) 288 pages, $33.08 cloth.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Rogues’ tale
By Joseph Wilson
This slim volume, a swashbuckling adventure by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, first appeared in serial form in the New York Times Magazine last year. Check out this gloriously bound version, …
GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD by Michael Chabon (Anchor), 224 pages, $17.95 paper.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Misfortune’s child
By David Jager
Ten-year-old Birahima is the blisteringly foul-mouthed child soldier narrating Ahmadou Kourouma’s latest novel, Allah Is Not Obliged. The full title, he tells us in the first sentence, is “Allah is …
ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED by Ahmadou Kourouma (Vintage), 215 pages, $21.95 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Cool Kaslik
By EMMA MCKENNA
Ibi Kaslik’s cruelly tender second novel is a backstage encounter with Canadian indie music, full of sly allusions to the struggles that characterized Broken Social Scene’s rise to fame. From one …
THE ANGEL RIOTS by Ibi Kaslik (Penguin), 256 pages, $22 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Druggies’ lives
By Lauren Kirschner
Finally, a book on addiction whose protagonist won’t end up recanting his words on the Oprah Winfrey show. Not that I disliked James Frey’s 2003 breakout novel A Million Little Pieces. In fact, I …
IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH ADDICTION by Gabor Maté (Knopf), 465 pages, $34.95 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Rock revelations
By Susan G. Cole
Note to all you suits in town for Canadian Music Week: Dan Kennedy’s got your number. The former mid-level marketing executive’s bitter and very funny account of his experience at a fast-dying music …
ROCK ON: AN OFFICE POWER BALLAD by Dan Kennedy (Algonquin), 214 pages, $16.95 paper.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Love birds
By Lauren Kirschner
To talk about Gertrude Stein is to talk about Alice B. Toklas, her lover of 40 years, confidante, typist and cheerleader. The couple met in Paris in 1907 and became bright stars of the expatriate …
>> More
Book Reviews
Picture this
By Andrew Dowler
Will Eisner’s gift for spirited action and nuanced emotion in cartoons and his character-driven stories gives the three graphic novels and two shorter pieces collected here the energy and complexity …
>> More
Book Reviews
9/11’s origins?
By Howard Goldenthal
Sandblasted from history by the humiliated leaders of a dysfunctional desert monarchy and long forgotten by a world that has moved on to the anxieties of other atrocities are the cataclysmic events …
>> More
Book Reviews
Picasso pumped
By Susan G. Cole
A Life of Picasso is biography as it should be – thorough, enlightening and compulsively readable. Mining letters, books, monographs and his own personal experiences with the artist, author John …
>> More
Book Reviews
Brooks flows
By Susan G. Cole
Book conservation sounds like a snore as a fiction theme, but Geraldine Brooks makes it totally fascinating in People Of The Book. Rare book expert Hanna Heath has been called to Sarajevo to analyze …
>> More
Book Reviews
Swan song
By Susan G. Cole
This first novel by Mary Swan doesn’t have a narrative throughline, let alone a climax, but that kinda doesn’t matter. It’s a strangely beautiful book. In a fictional small town somewhere in central …
>> More
Book Reviews
Rebel in a suit
By Howard Goldenthal
Now that Cuban president Fidel Castro has taken early retirement, the old despot may have time to reflect on the strange and mysterious men who fought on both sides during the Cuban …
>> More
Book Reviews
Sad case
By Susan G. Cole
The Outcast is such a sad book, it’s the literary equivalent of a movie weepie. Set in post-Second World War England in a well-to-do town outside London, it’s a portrait of the misery bred by trauma …
>> More
Book Reviews
Archer misses
By Lesley McAllister
Literary lord Jeffrey Archer has come out with another blockbuster novel to add to his supersized reputation. I don’t get what all the fuss is about. There’s no denying Archer is a good storyteller, …
>> More
FRIDAY | MAY | 09 | 2008
Today's Hot Ticket

Disability, Mothers And Organization: Accidental Activists Book launch and discussion w/ author Melanie Panitch, and mothers Audrey Cole and Vida Panitch. 6-8 pm. Eaton Theatre, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park. fpeters@yorku.ca.

Book Reviews
Bible Lessons
Joseph Wilson
A.J. Jacobs is something of an obsessive-compulsive. In The Year Of Living Biblically, the agnostic author and Esquire editor attempts to unearth every obscure rule in the Bible and live by the …
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster), 400 pages, $28.99 cloth.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Dark worlds
David Jager
Two sisters, one studious and pulling an all-nighter, the other glamorous and trapped in a dangerous enchanted slumber, are at the centre of Haruki Murakami’s new novel. Eri, a pragmatic young girl …
AFTER DARK by Haruki Murakami (Bond Street/Doubleday), 256 pages, $14.28 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Anxiety attack
By Andrew Dowler
Weaving philosophy, poetry, medicine, history and social commentary into her memoir of a life spent suffering from generalized anxiety, Patricia Pearson crafts a lively, varied portrait of an …
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANXIETY (YOURS AND MINE) by Patricia Pearson (Random House), 198 pages, $29.95 cloth.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Real-life intrigue
By Susan G. Cole
Emma Donoghue’s gone back to her bread and butter, historical fiction, and the result sure is tasty. As she’s done in her excellent novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, Donoghue seizes on a real-life …
THE SEALED LETTER by Emma Donoghue (HarperCollins), 397 pages, $29.95 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Power point
By Howard Goldenthal
The Iraq war has spawned many tragedies. Among the most terrible was the enormous explosion in Baghdad that ended the life of one of the most remarkable men to rise through the bloated and often …
CHASING THE FLAME: SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE WORLD by Samantha Power (Penguin), 622 pages, $32.95.
Rating: NNNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Black betrayal
By Susan G. Cole
Should black America support or trash Justice Clarence Thomas? Can Barack Obama become president without selling out? What’s a decent definition of “sellout” anyway? Randall Kennedy likes to plumb …
SELLOUT: THE POLITICS OF RACIAL BETRAYAL by Randall Kennedy (Pantheon), 194 pages, $25 cloth.
Rating: NNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Terrorist as comic
By Zoe Whittall
Do violent debutantes have a place in political struggle? Brian Joseph Davis sets out to answer this question in an insanely funny first novel. I, Tania’s premise sounds just preposterous enough to …
I, TANIA by Brian Joseph Davis (ECW), 118 pages, $19.95 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Deep detail
By Joseph Wilson
Remainder is one of those books I couldn’t put down but can’t figure out why. The protagonist is cold and unrepentant, and the author spends three pages describing the crack in a bathroom wall. But …
REMAINDER By Tom McCarthy (Vintage), 320 pages, $17.95 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
Clever Coetzee
By David Jager
J.M. Coetzee uses his ear for contradiction and inconsistency to bring off a complex novel. C., the protagonist of Diary Of A Bad Year is a 72-year-old South African novelist transplanted to …
DIARY OF A BAD YEAR by J.M. Coetzee (Vintage), 304 pages, $21.95 paper.
Rating: NNNN
>> More
Book Reviews
A different war
By Bryan Borzykowski
Go to a news site on any given day and there’s a good chance you’ll come across a story about wife assault. That’s because from 2000 to 2007, more women have been killed by their male partners than …
THE WAR ON WOMEN: ELLY ARMOUR, JANE HURSHMAN AND CRIMINAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN CANADIAN HOMES by Brian Vallée (Key Porter), 376 pages, $32.95 cloth.
Rating: NNNN
>> More