Literary

It was the night before solstice and I was ready for a partythe air was cold and the snow was coming, you could tell it was gonna besoon startingthe sky was pink. you could smell the anticipation in the treessnowflakes to grace us with their presence and drape across branches where there once were leaves’tis […]

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lotCause they liked to show off how much money they gotAnd they never invited the Grinch who lived up on Mount CrumpitAnd when the Whos had garbage they went there to dump itThere were boxes and bows and tinfoil and wrappingIt was toxic but the Grinch couldn’t […]

My son Joey’s so little, he’s resting his chin on the kitchen table, eyes slightly crossed as he manoeuvres a spoonful of Rice Krispies toward his lips. “Joey,” I say. He blinks at his bowl with sleepy eyes. I want to brush his dirty-blonde bangs out of them. “Yeah, ma,” he says, hoarsely. “Did you […]

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!!! It’s that time of year again. Do u hate crowded shopping malls?Do u hate wrappin Christmas gifts?Do u hate big family dinners with crazy relatives? Do u hate Christmas? If u answered yes To any of the previous questions…Bah humbug…. Have I got a deal for the bah humbug in […]

A Great Feast of LightJohn DoylePeople who think television is a waste of time have probably never read John Doyle’s excellent column on the subject in The Globe and Mail. I feel a little sorry for those people, because they’ll probably also never read his memoir of growing up in Ireland at the dawning of […]

Map of GlassJane UrquhartLaced with fanciful images, like a hotel entirely and literally lost to the sands of time, a glass ballroom floor, three-dimensional maps made of fabric and bits of nature, and a dead man encased in ice floating down a river, Map of Glass is certainly Jane Urquhart’s finest book, and there’s a […]

The Weather MakersTim FlanneryHarper CollinsNothing puts a downer on holiday festivities like a good ol’ climate crisis. But as Tim Flannery points out in what’s probably the best-written and accessible book on the subject, the earth is in terrible danger. Over 13,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon are released into the atmosphere annually. That’s us, folks. With […]

Miss ElvaStephens Gerard MaloneStephens Gerard Malone wrote this novel years ago, couldn’t find a publisher for it and tucked it away in a cedar chest in the basement. It finally saw the light of day this year, and a good thing, too. It’s an unsentimental story based loosely on the life of Maud Lewis, that […]

Absolute DC: The New FrontierDarwyn CookeDCToronto-born, Nova Scotia-residing Darwyn Cooke’s limited series is given the deluxe treatment in a huge DC Absolute edition. It’s a look back at an era of DC heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern—with only the slightest of nods to the gods of continuity, and tells the story of a moment […]

Race Against TimeStephen LewisIt’s not good in the way a novel is good, in that it takes you away from your real life. Race Against Time does that, but it takes you to a place you’d probably rather not go; a place you’re lucky you don’t have to visit, let alone inhabit. Still, it’s a […]