Looking for Alaska, John Green (2005) Some months back I blogged about The Fault in our Stars, by John Green. I absolutely loved this book. I went in search of everything else the author has written, and with another title down, I have not been disappointed. Green’s 2005 debut novel
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wmtc: buzzfeed announces no negative book reviews: what that means (and doesn’t mean) and why it’s good
In a New York Times op-ed, I’ve learned that BuzzFeed has announced the hiring of its first book editor, and will start publishing book reviews. But it will not run negative book reviews. Isaac Fitzgerald (formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s) said: BuzzFeed will do book reviews, Fitzgerald said, but he hasn’t figured
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: nw by zadie smith
If you haven’t read anything by Zadie Smith, I highly recommend finding White Teeth, her debut novel, and diving in. Smith wrote White Teeth while still attending university, and it was published to great acclaim when she was only 25 years old. It’s a wonderfully sprawling novel, by turns wry,
Continue readingwmtc: 11.11: lest we forget, let’s not forget: there is no glory in war.
For Canadians who fear and distrust the steadily growing militarism suffusing the culture of our country, two recent books are indispensable: What We Talk About When We Talk About War, by Noah Richler, and Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift. Richler’s
Continue readingwmtc: noah richler on the language of war propaganda, and the dishonesty of present ideology
From Noah Richler’s What We Talk About When We Talk About War: We have a duty to be honest and rigorous, with ourselves and with others, and to be able to brook contradiction and argument in our discussions of past wars and the present one in Afghanistan. But instead, in today’s
Continue readingwmtc: noah richler: canada was shaped by discussion and compromise, not through war
[The over-emphasis on Canadian military history] distorts and downplays the significant roles that Canadian politicians, diplomats, jurists and a variety of other civilians (such as artists) have had in shaping not just the domestic Canadian polity but abstract, universal ideas about statehood that have served as examples internationally – in
Continue readingwmtc: faludi: corporatist pseudo-feminism vs radical change for women and all working people
I would like to draw your attention to an excellent article by Susan Faludi in The Baffler: Facebook Feminism: Like It or Not. Faludi contrasts the corporatist, individualistic, me-first, privileged, self-centered, pseudo-feminism of “Lean In” with the collective, cross-class activism of some of the original feminists: the “Mill Girls” of
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading, children’s books edition # 9: wonderstruck
Over the summer, I wrote about The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, a children’s book with a suspenseful, convoluted story, lavishly illustrated with Selznick’s beautiful pencil drawings. (I scanned several of those images into my earlier post.) I’ve just finished Selznick’s most recent book, Wonderstruck. Wonderstruck is filled
Continue readingwmtc: my favourite customers and two-way readers’ advisory
The children’s library where I work services a huge age-range of young people and their caregivers, from birth up to around age 12. I enjoy the full range – helping parents understand the importance of reading to their children, helping kids find fun books to read, finding material for school
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the maze runner, a youth novel
There’s a subgenre of youth books in which young people are cast into an alien and dangerous world, where they must struggle to understand their purpose, struggle to survive. If you remember your own adolescence, the metaphor should be obvious. These books are often characterized as nihilistic or depressing, but
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: man’s search for meaning by viktor frankl
I’ve just finished reading Man’s Search for Meaning, a classic written by Dr. Viktor E. Frankl in 1959, republished with various forewords and epilogues in 1984, 1992, and 2006. It’s a book I had long wanted to read but had forgotten about, until I saw it on the Mississauga Library
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: clarence darrow, attorney for the damned, by john a. farrell
I last wrote about Clarence Darrow in early 2012, after reading a piece by one of my favourite New Yorker writers, Jill Lepore. Two new biographies of Darrow had been published, and Lepore wrote a tribute to the great defender, and mused on the state of North American labour movement.
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the fault in our stars, a truly great novel for youth and not-youth
I am in the middle of reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, a book almost too painful to read but impossible to put down. It’s achingly funny, profoundly insightful, and utterly heartbreaking, all at the same time. The Fault In Our Stars is supposedly a youth novel,
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: two youth novels
There is so much truly excellent youth fiction out these days, and it’s not all vampires and zombies. Here are two wonderful teen novels in two totally different veins. There Is No Dog, Meg Rossoff, 2011 Like many excellent novels, Meg Rosoff’s There Is No Dog defies easy classification. It’s
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading, children’s books edition: # 8: the invention of hugo cabret
In the aftermath of the flood and with our impending move, when I’m not dealing with those events, all I want to do is read and blog. If you enjoy my “what i’m reading” posts, you’ll be happy. If not… * * * * I’ve long wanted to read The
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the casual vacancy by j. k. rowling
The Casual Vacancy, J. K. Rowling’s first non- Harry Potter book, received almost universally poor reviews, ranging from tepid to savage. Reviewers found the book too long for the subject matter, too slow, poorly paced. They thought the plot was a soap opera. They found the writing cliched, studied, heavy-handed.
Continue readingwmtc: rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: I can’t stop looking at Rue, smaller than ever, a baby animal curled up in a nest of netting. I can’t bring myself to leave her like this. Past harm, but seeming utterly defenseless. To hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: youth fiction: the hunger games
This is the first in a series of reviews of youth (formerly called YA, or young-adult) novels, which I will be reading in no particular order and with no particular method. I love youth literature, and it’s simply a pleasure to read what I want once again, with no schoolwork
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading, children’s books edition: # 7: two by roddy doyle
Roddy Doyle is one of my favourite authors. I read everything he publishes for adults, but I had never read any of his children’s books before. I recently read two of them, and I’m so glad I did. Wilderness, Roddy Doyle, 2007 In this story, a mother and her two
Continue readingwmtc: children’s books # 6: the return of interspecies love
It’s been a while since I’ve written about children’s books, and an even longer while since I’ve done an interspecies love post, so why not combine the two? There’s a spate of children’s books depicting cross-species animal friendships, some excellent, some better avoided. Children love these stories for the same
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