Sunday, November 30, 2014

Philip Larkin, the loveable, hateful old bastard

My review of Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love by James Booth in the Toronto Star.

"[Larkin] has few rivals when it comes to conjuring joyful or heart-crushing beauty out of utterly commonplace situations and none in the realm of transforming disappointment into something both hilarious and transcendent."

Read the whole thing here.

Monday, November 10, 2014

The Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCulloch writes a book about being happy, ostensibly

"This country specializes in the knowing chuckle. We prefer jokes that act as gently dissolving humour lozenges, slowly releasing homespun wisdom. (See: Stuart McLean, The Royal Canadian Air Farce, Red Green, Corner Gas, Russell Peters.)
In that respect, the Kids in the Hall are something special."

Saturday, October 04, 2014

Monday, April 28, 2014

More books I read for money: featuring David Letterman, Bruce McCall, Gary Shteyngart, the guy who co-wrote "Babe: Pig in the City," and more!

Omnibus blog posts are the best/only kind of blog posts. And so:

Review of This Land Was Made for You and Me by Bruce McCall and David Letterman.

Review of Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart (to which Mr. Shteyngart replied with some Twitter shouting).

Review of Today I Am A Boy by Kim Fu.

Review of The Full Ridiculous by Mark Lamprell. (Who co-wrote Babe: Pig in the City! Which I love! This book not so much!)


Bonus content: getting drunk on CanLit! Watching UFC with poets!

    A very subtle and funny writer - one I've become obsessed with over the past year - in a decidedly Muriel Spark mood. Imagine The Pr...