I have never read a word written by Marcel Proust, nor have I ever felt the urge to do so.  The reputation for difficulty earned by Prous...

Margaret Edson’s W;t was a tiny little book that jumped out at me from the classics shelf at my local library.  I always find it interes...

Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad is part of the Canongate Books series of top shelf authors retelling the greatest myths of the wor...

I recently picked up Anna Quindlen's contribution to the Library of Contemporary Thought series entitled How Reading Changed My Life...

On 17 January 1958, the McClelland and Stewart publishing house launched the New Canadian Library , a paperback series aimed at the gen...

[These primeval solitudes] suspend your forced sense of your own importance not merely as individuals, but even as men.  They allow you,...

  You still think it's beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country...

  Last summer I re-read The Great Gatsby in anticipation of seeing the Baz Luhrmann film.  I watch very few films, and rarely go to th...

Reading The English Patient immediately after Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April , I was struck by the similarities in settin...

As I began Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April I was immediately reminded of Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs. Palfrey at the Clarem...

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood is a deeply satisfying book.  This is the kind of book that I can (and did!) turn from the last page back t...

Whilst researching her book The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk , author Jennifer Niven encountered information about Ad...

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book . - Thomas à Kempis When Nin...

Originally published in 1956, Lost in the Barrens is one of the earliest of Farley Mowat's numerous publications.  It was the winner...