From the Newsstand
May 8, 2008
Alas, Poor…? 1
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
Reuters’ “Oddly Enough” column ventures this week into the realm of literary history and intrigue: The mystery of Schiller’s skull. When he died of tuberculosis in his forties, Friedrich Schiller, the eighteenth-century German Romantic poet, playwright, and philosopher, was buried in a mass grave. Several decades later, the mass grave was dug up and Schiller’s [...]
May 6, 2008
The Shop Around the Corner 1
by Andrew Saikali
How does an independent bookshop not only survive, but remain vital amid the encroaching chains? How does a tightly-knit community bolster its authors in a cut-throat industry? Independent bookshop owner Heidi Hallett has tackled both these issues by doing what the best independent shopkeepers do – opting for the intimate, the local. As this recent [...]
April 21, 2008
A List with a Twist 0
by Andrew Saikali
It began at the start of the year with Huck Finn, and Gulliver put in an appearance this week. Along the way, Gatsby and Don Quixote stood on the pedestal and took a bow, their tales championed, their authors heralded. The Globe and Mail, that venerable institution which, not incidentally, happens to pay my salary, [...]
April 15, 2008
On Enthusiasm and Criticism 1
by C. Max Magee
The discussion about the future of book criticism can seem like a bubble sometimes, but I was reminded, in A.O. Scott’s charming tribute to Roger Ebert in Sunday’s New York Times, that book reviewers and their readers should not feel singled out in these challenging times. Scott noted the disappearance of movie critics as well [...]
April 14, 2008
When He Was Good… 0
by Garth Risk Hallberg
New York’s NPR affiliate, WNYC, has posted downloadable audio of last weekend’s 75th Birthday celebration for Philip Roth. Featured speakers include Jonathan Lethem, Charles D’Ambrosio, and Hermione Lee. Alvin Pepler, unfortunately, had a prior engagement…
April 9, 2008
Survey Says: People Are Reading 0
by C. Max Magee
Here’s news. In a new survey conducted by polling firm Harris, “over one-third of Americans read more than ten books in typical year.” As regulars on the literature-is-a-dying-art beat, we know that this flies in the face of countless other surveys which have found that the typical American home contains just six books, all of [...]
