Book Review: From Shy to Social: The Shy Man’s Guide to Personal & Dating Success by Christopher Gray
Now immediately I would ask said catalysts of this satisfaction and happiness—women—to stop reading. The whole point of the book is to persuade the estrogen-inclined into providing “satisfaction,” and it would be deeply unfair if you were wise to all our tricks before we (the testosterone-inclined) even tried them. Remember that, at least for the purpose of this work, you are like carefree, prancing gazelle on the African savannah, and we are like starving, lust-crazed cheetahs, anxiously developing our plan to stalk through the long grasses, separate you from the rest of the herd, and possibly obtain your phone-number.
Charles Dickens’ bicentenniel: Tales of urban poverty still relevant
I will be celebrating his bicentennial, if only by checking another one of his novels off my reading list and putting a “happy birthday” message into the social network universe. But not many people enjoy such enduring recognition as to have their birthday recognized centuries later. What makes Dickens so special, then?
Book Review: Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger by Nigel Slater
Toast is a tale told through vignettes, all of which revolve around some element of 1960s British cuisine (be it an idiosyncratic Sunday dinner or a much cherished chocolate bar), and he relates each food item masterfully to the milestones in his own life that have led him to become the person he is now.
Book Review: The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje’s new book The Cat’s Table is an intimate tale of a young boy’s journey from Colombo to England on the ocean liner, the Oronsay. The boy, oddly enough named Michael, is accompanied by his two friends Cassius, who is somewhat rambunctious, and Ramdhim who is known for his emotionality. Together the three children accompany a group of wayward adults at the back corner of the dining hall at the table known as “the cat’s table.” Each of the adults has their own stories to tell; about their pasts or their interactions with each other. All of these histories and actions are viewed through Michael’s eyes, giving the book a childish spin on the adult world around him. The children begin wandering about the ship, learning as they go and meeting other men and women from other classes of the ship. As the journey continues they begin to learn more about themselves and slowly mature as their perceptions of the world around them begin to change. Throughout the book they become open to the worlds of intrigue, villainy, self-preservation, sexuality and other people.
Book Review: Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
P.D. James, well known for her mystery and thriller novels, blends an artist’s passion for Jane Austen and her skill for mystery writing, creating a rich, evocative story.
Book Review: Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth Vary Baker
Me & Lee, by Judyth Vary Baker, is a controversial non-fiction account of a woman’s personal relationship with a man who was made infamous by being accused of being the assassin who shot and killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Book Review: The Magician King by Lev Grossman
This novel has the hallmarks of one written without a clear plan – the plot meanders, heads off in odd directions, and grows organically. This results in not everything necessarily adding up in the end, but not in a glaring way.
Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
In her book, readers learn a little bit about Kaling’s unathletic childhood, how college ruined her, and her many jobs in New York including babysitting and working for a TV psychic. But most surprisingly is her big break that got her attention from the show biz world
Book Review: While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut
In While Mortals Sleep, Kurt Vonnegut’s altruism is resonant, but lacking the punchy style that we have come to love the famous novelist for. While Mortals Sleep is a posthumous collection of short stories – most of them early works. Unlike Vonnegut’s novels, which revolve around rich, eccentric alcoholic millionaires, and apocalyptic scenarios (as well as time travel) and American-born Nazi double agents, the stories focus on the common man – regular people in regular situations that could happen to any of us.
NaNoWriMo: How to write a novel in 30 days or less
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The movement began with only 21 people in July 1999, all with a singular goal: to write a novel of 50,000 words in just one month.
Book Review: Salinger: A Biography by Paul Alexander
There are few literary icons as enigmatic and mysterious as the reclusive JD Salinger, author of highly-lauded coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye. There is very little known about Salinger because he rarely granted interviews, and when he did he did not allow video or audio recording; thus, he went into hiding for much of his life. There are no primary sources when it comes to an investigation into the life of JD Salinger, for JD Salinger did not want to talk, and most of the people who knew him still to this day respect his wishes for privacy. Paul Alexander seeks to tear down these high walls of solitude that the hermit author constructed during his time on this earth in order to gain a better understanding of who the man was and what happened to him in his book entitled Salinger: A Biography.
Book Review: Troika by Alastair Reynolds
Troika is a steady-paced science fiction novella, of a similar vein to Michael Crichton’s Sphere, and Arthur C. Clark’s A Space Odyssey. It carries itself with a healthy level of mystery, all the while exploring the prospect of our near future and our humanity. As we come to the age of the closing of the American Space program, the world in Troika seems to be a haunting reflection of our own choices in the world of science.
Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth
Much like the series The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins, Divergent, Veronica Roth’s first novel and the first in what is also to become a trilogy, shows a division of society in a post-apocalyptic world.
Creative Writing: A novel idea?
This fall, the UFV students in English 311: Novel Writing have been attempting to prove that something as deeply personal as a novel can be successfully written in a classroom setting.
Book Review: The House At Riverton by Kate Morton
The House at Riverton is an engrossing page-turner. While Morton’s plot risks taking itself too seriously at times (events are occasionally drawn out with much more significance than necessary), readers will note that this is a novel written with heart and revelry in the material
Book Review: Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
In Irma Voth, Miriam Toews returns to her compelling (and successful) topic of following the inner world of a young teenage girl in a Mennonite community. A Complicated Kindness, which Irma Voth echoes, won Toews the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction.
Book Review: Bumble-Ardy by Maurice Sendak
Bumble Ardy is the somewhat confusing tale of a pig who turns nine and incurs the wrath of his guardian aunt by inviting circus performers to his first ever birthday party. Never mind that, in pig years, nine is well past maturity, and that the character’s name appears to have been chosen simply so the author has something to rhyme with the word party. The story itself simply doesn’t make much sense. Sendak is minimalistic at the best of times, but there’s a difference between sparse and lacking – the reader is never quite sure what is going on.
Greeting the Light at UFV: Campus welcomes new professors and research at free event
In one week, on October 20, UFV will present its first South Asian Literary Colloquium, an event that hopes to shine a light on the research and activities happening at UFV by staff and students in the field of South Asian studies. The event, which will have the full name, “Greeting the Light: UFV South Asian Literary Colloquium,” is sponsored by the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies, the English department, the college of arts and the UFV research office. Greeting the Light will be an hour long lunch time event, running from noon to 1 p.m. and will feature readings followed by a Q&A and light refreshments.
Book Review: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
To read an author whose talent and imagination leads them through an array of genres is an interesting change from modern authors who stick to the familiar. Patchett is one such example, moving through the tangled Amazon in State of Wonder, to a home for unwed mothers in the 1960s in Patron Saint of Liars; from a father trying to protect his children in Run to a magician’s widow delving into the secrets of her deceased husband in The Magician’s Assistant. And now Bel Canto, a quiet reflection of twisted, lovely, complex, human relationships
Book Review: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
In The Paris Wife, Paula McLain rewrites A Moveable Feast from Hadley’s point of view, and captures the hopefulness and heartbreak experienced by the first Mrs. Hemingway.
Book Review: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The idea for the literary non-fiction story was conceived when Hemingway received word from the Paris Ritz Hotel that he had two trunks left in the basement from long ago in his days when he lived there. Hemingway had forgotten all about these trunks, and went to inspect them. What he found was his old clothes from his years as a young American Expatriate, and old writings documenting the time he lived in Paris. This sparked the idea in his mind that he would write about Paris in the 1920s, from his own perspective, using these lost writings as the basis.
Book Review: This is a Book by Demetri Martin
The subtlety with which he delivers his material at first makes you wonder if he’s reached his punch line at all, but if you’re an intelligent audience member hoping to do more than just sit next to the drunk guy who laughs at anything anyway, then Demetri Martin is the one for you, especially now that his brilliance is so easily accessible in the form of his first book, This is a Book.
Book Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera is a singularly inventive and interesting author, and his most famous work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is an exemplary illustration of his deftness and wit.
Book Review: The Lotus Singers, ed. Trevor Carolan
In a modern age that has forgotten past memories all too often for the quick thrill and temporary buzz of iPads and meat-clad singers, let me, if you will, reintroduce an image you might remember – from a childhood story at least. It is of the travelling merchant, a peddler of goods, from nowhere in particular, yet, he certainly goes somewhere; everywhere even. And in this memory – mine and yours – he is an important man because he is the bringer of goods and the connector of places; he is a keeper of stories.
