Posts by Ken McGoogan
Good company for a cross-country road triip
Hitting the Road Thirteen of Canada’s leading writers pick essential stops on a cross-country literary tour. It’s summertime. Time to strap on the seat belts and go exploring, across all of this country’s provinces and territories. And we will need some great reading matter to help eat up the kilometres and tell us something essential…
Read MoreDo I love Switzerland?
BERN — Start with practicalities, say the transit system. Nothing but gorgeous, hi-tech trams, two or three cars long, bright red, zooming along on schedule to the minute. To the minute! This is the clockwork efficiency you hear so much about. And, okay, what about those public toilets? I am mortified to imagine what the…
Read MoreUm, does the author ever get paid?
A recent story in the London Free Press shows why authors are wondering about the way ebooks are rolling into libraries. The future is now, the story tells us, and more and folks are “taking out books electronically, downloading titles from the comfort of their own computers.” At the London Public Library, which is just…
Read MoreCanadian literature in libraries
I recently returned from Ottawa, where as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, I reported to the board of the Canada Council. My main message? Next year (2011) marks the 25th anniversary of the PLR Program, which recognizes Canadian authors for the presence of their books in libraries. These are still early days. But…
Read MoreSpaces are going, going . . .
In fact, already we’re eight down, four to go, and as I write we’re weeks to deadline. This workshop is heading for capacity. We’re talking Narrative Nonfiction at the University of Toronto Summer School July 5 to 9. I’ve got a new book coming this fall (How the Scots Invented Canada, nice of you to…
Read MoreKane arrives in Alaska
Review: ‘Race to Polar Sea’ delivers history, adventure by David A. James / For the Fairbanks News-Miner FAIRBANKS – “A scientist studying the effects of extreme stress could hardly do better than to confine nineteen men in a cabin and subject them to intense cold and never-ending darkness while attacking them with scurvy and starvation.”…
Read MoreOh Whitman, my Whitman!
Walt Whitman’s Secret, by George Fetherling, Random House Canada, 350 pages, $32. Reviewed by Ken McGoogan Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Apr. 09, 2010 Nothing in the previous work of George Fetherling has prepared us for this. The man has written dozens of books, among them biographies, histories, contemporary novels, collections of essays…
Read MoreArctic Labyrinths
In the first issue of Canada’s History, the magazine formerly known as The Beaver, our hero reviews a pair of books. . . . Arctic Labyrinth by Gwyn Williams, and Joseph-Elzéar Bernier by Marjolaine Saint-Pierre Reviewed by Ken McGoogan In his 1908 book about navigating the Northwest Passage, Roald Amundsen explicitly credited the Scottish-Orcadian explorer…
Read MoreThe Nervous Breakdown Interview
Our hero turns up at The Nervous Breakdown, a wonderfully edgy site based in California. Here, besides the self-interview (punch that link) and the travel yarn below, you can find excerpts and more links. Hey, you gotta love it! HISTORY Following in the Wake of Elisha Kent Kane by KEN MCGOOGAN BEECHEY ISLAND 10 March…
Read MoreWho owns the Arctic?
Meanwhile, at the Globe and Mail, we find a review of Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North, by Michael Byers, Douglas & McIntyre, 147 pages, $22.95 Reviewed by Ken McGoogan Published on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 For Arctic explorers seeking to enter the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic, one of the…
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