O: A Presidential Novel is probably the most heavily-hyped political novel since the release of Primary Colors back in 1996. It’s not, however, the only political novel drawing attention; Donald, about former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumseld, comes out next month. I take a look at both books in Tuesday’s National Post.
I asked Rebecca Eckler to guest edit The Afterword this week. Some people on Twitter weren’t very happy about it. They probably won’t be thrilled to see I profile her in Saturday’s paper.
In this week’s edition of Culture Club, I rounded up all the finalists for the Charles Taylor Prize to talk about the state of non-fiction. A truncated version of the panel appears in today’s paper, but you can read the whole thing here.
I spoke to the Irish writer Colm Tóibín a couple of weeks ago about his new short story collection, The Empty Family. Here’s what I wrote about it.
The nominees for this year’s Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction were announced on Tuesday. I have some reading to do. Charles Foran’s Mordecai: The Life and Times is the only title I’ve read cover-to-cover.
When we were trying to figure out where to photograph Andrew Pyper, whom I profile in Saturday’s National Post, he suggested an abandoned apartment complex a few blocks away from his west-end Toronto home; the Sylvan Apartments were suitably creepy, though the photo I posted with the story over on The Afterword really doesn’t do them justice. At one point, while standing around in its large courtyard while Andrew and Tyler Anderson were off shooting, I noticed one of the curtains in a second-floor window fluttering.
I’ve written about the film adaption of Mordecai Richler’s novel, Barney’s Version, quite a lot lately; I imagine my appearance on this week’s Popcorn Panel will be the last time.
I am not, for obvious reasons, a fan of censoring books. So news that an American publisher will release a bowdlerized version of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was greeted by outrage by people other than myself.