David Bowie is much more than a famous musician – he is a cultural icon. His approach to showmanship, song writing, performance – even fashion – have inspired his own and every subsequent generation. Not only that, but he is an articulate, intelligent man whose appeal and charisma extend well beyond his musical talent, READ MORE
Category: Book Review
BOOK REVIEW | THE WAYFINDERS: WHY ANCIENT WISDOM MATTERS IN THE MODERN WORLD – WADE DAVIS
“…[R]emember the central revelation of anthropology: the idea that the social world in which we live does not exist in some absolute sense, but rather is simply one model of reality, the consequence of one set of intellectual and spiritual choices that our particular cultural lineage made, however successfully, many generations ago.” A friend READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | PARIS TIMES EIGHT: FINDING MYSELF IN THE CITY OF DREAMS – DEIRDRE KELLY
Paris is probably the only city in the world that is dreamed about by such a wide variety of people – romantics, historians, artists, fashionistas and jet-setters alike. It is a city that is famous not only for notorious home-grown figures like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Victor Hugo, but also for READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | TRAUMA FARM: A REBEL HISTORY OF RURAL LIFE – BRIAN BRETT
Trauma Farm is a book about some of the biggest issues facing us in a world of increasing globalization and corporatization. Written by a poet, who also happens to be a rural farmer, it discusses the struggles that are being faced by small-scale, non-corporate farmers throughout North America as they see their livelihoods threatened READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | INCONTINENT ON THE CONTINENT: MY MOTHER, HER WALKER, AND OUR GRAND TOUR OF ITALY – JANE CHRISTMAS
I love reading travel memoirs. As a student I can’t afford to gallivant, fancy-free about the world experiencing new cultures and gathering exciting and amusing anecdotes. So I like to read the stories of those who do. Some of my favourite books involve travels in France and Italy – for some reason the cultures READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | CITY OF GLASS – DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Douglas Coupland has an unparalleled knack for seeing the familiar world around him with the eyes of a stranger. He is able to pick out parts of what we, in our common part of the world, see as “normal” and make them fascinating. In 1994 he made an entire book out of his observations READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | JULIET, NAKED – NICK HORNBY
At some point in our lives most of us (if not all of us) have become infatuated with someone famous. We have collected all their albums or every movie they’ve ever been in – even the ones that weren’t very good. We’ve spent hours daydreaming about what it would be like to meet them READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | MARSHALL MCLUHAN – DOUGLAS COUPLAND
I’m a huge fan of Douglas Coupland’s writing, and as a communications student, I’ve heard the name “Marshall McLuhan” more times in the past few years that I can count. So this book was doubly appealing. Despite my passing familiarity with Marshall McLuhan, as I sat down to read this book, I realized that READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | THE MAN WHO LOVED BOOKS TOO MUCH: THE TRUE STORY OF A THIEF, A DETECTIVE, AND A WORLD OF LITERARY OBSESSION – ALLISON HOOVER BARTLETT
Anyone who is a bibliophile (and let’s face it, most of us who review books are) will be able to relate to the subject matter of Allison Hoover Bartlett’s book, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. As someone who collects books as much for their aesthetic appeal as for their content, I can understand READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | FALL – COLIN MCADAM
“We were boys who wore suits, monkeys with manners. We didn’t have parents but were treated like babies. We were left on our own but had hundreds of rules to abide.” Fall is one of this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize finalists. It is the coming of age story of two young men in their READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | SUBWAY ART – MARTHA COOPER & HENRY CHALFANT
Subway Art is to graffiti books what Wild Style is to graffiti movies. It documents not only the genesis of a new art form, but also a period of urban history and the birth of hip hop culture. Originally published in 1984, it was the first book to take graffiti seriously as an READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | OUTLAW JOURNALIST: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON – WILLIAM MCKEEN
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Hunter S. Thompson is best known for his public image as a drug-crazed madman who flouted authority, despised monotony and had pretty much every adventure you could imagine – and some you couldn’t. Thompson lived his life at full throttle, a mile a minute READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT – GRAHAM GREENE
My parents, thus proving how cool they are, read this book to me when I was a child. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but since I was still young enough to be read to, I’m guessing I was not yet into double digits. So reading this book always makes me feel as READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | WHAT IS AMERICA?: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER – RONALD WRIGHT
What is America: A Short History of the New World Order is Ronald Wright’s third historical text, following in the footsteps of Stolen Continents, a historical account of the conquest of the Americas and A Short History of Progress, the book based on Wright’s 2005 Massey Lectures series. Both of these texts have been READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY: MURDER, MAGIC, AND MADNESS AT THE FAIR THAT CHANGED AMERICA – ERIK LARSON
I was on my way home from Chicago a few years ago and had a stop over in Sea-Tac. With time to kill, I wandered into one of the only open stores and started browsing through the books and magazines on display. For some reason I picked up this book and impulsively bought it. READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | NERVE: THE FIRST TEN YEARS – EDITORS OF NERVE.COM
It has been said that you should never judge a book by its cover, but as soon as I saw this book I fell in love with it. On the cover lounges a mesmerizing woman whose eyes beckon to you through a transparent hot pink vinyl cover with the word “NERVE” etched across it. Then READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | I CAPTURE THE CASTLE – DODIE SMITH
Dodie Smith is best known for her children’s book, 101 Dalmations, but I Capture the Castle is by far my favourite of the two. I first read this book when I was about 14 years old. I remember abandoning reality and diving into it every afternoon after school for as long as I could READ MORE
BOOK REVIEW | THE SEVENTH OCTAVE – SAUL WILLIAMS
I’m going to let this one speak for itself: Excerpt from “Amethyst Rocks” i be one with rain and stars and things with dancing feet and watermelon wings i bring the sunshine and the moon and the wind blows my tune …meanwhilei spoon powdered drum beats into plastic bags sellin’ kilos of kente scag READ MORE