Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
The fall issue of the Montreal Review of Books looks at some of our recent publications.
Outside the Box: The Life and Legacy of Writer Mona Gould, the Grandmother I Thought I Knew
By Maria Meindl
“My childhood memories of Mona are vivid and disturbing, just the type of experience that ferments over the years and draws the attention back and back until you express it in some form. As soon as I sat down to write anything, Mona was just there. I couldn’t not write the memoir sections of the book.
Just before she died, Mona left her papers to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. I’d taken on the job of sorting them and it made sense that I should go on to write the biography.
It was a real “should,” though, and at times I resented it. I waffled for a long time before I admitted to myself I was writing the book. Judge Edra Ferguson (who had known Mona from St. Thomas, Ontario) called me up after Mona’s obituary appeared in the Globe and Mail, and told me she would help me with the research, as if the book were already underway (even though at that point I was just coming to terms with the magnitude of sorting the papers). I found it impossible to say no to Judge Ferguson. That was a strong motivating factor!
I’m glad I did it, though. All of it.”
Read the full author interview
Georges and Pauline Vanier: Portrait of a Couple
By Mary Frances Coady
“In refreshingly clear prose built upon tremendous research, Coady has written the story of a couple who served Canada not only in their lifetime, but through future generations. To wit, the Vanier Institute of the Family as well as the humanitarian work of their children: Jean Vanier (l’Arche), daughter Thérèse (pioneering female physician), Georges (Trappist monk at Oka).
It’s tempting to assume that a very modern and preoccupied Canada has lost that mid-century sense of service and public good. But the words of Jack Layton, as relayed by Reverend Hawkes, cannot help but sound slightly familiar: ‘How I live my life every day is an act of worship.’ Georges Vanier couldn’t have said it any better.”
Reading the 21st Century: Books of the Decade, 2000-2009
By Stan Persky
“Persky has analyzed the statistics showing a decline in reading, writing, and general knowledge in today’s students. He has also tried to teach works of Spanish literature to a group of undergraduates, only to find that they hadn’t heard of the Spanish Civil War. Or Albert Camus. Or Augusto Pinochet. ‘How do you discuss a novel about the nature of historical memory with people who have no historical memory?’ he writes.
Persky calls this a contemporary ‘cultural and political crisis,’ and his new book of criticism attempts to look at how books published between 2000 and 2009 deal with it. He is interested in how the books of great writers, from novelists like Philip Roth and Javier Cercas to cultural commentators like Tony Judt and Richard Dawkins, address the loss of much of their younger audience to electronic ‘infotainment.'”
To arrange an interview with the authors, contact MQUP Publicist Jacqui Davis.
No comments yet.