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On Reading Shakespeare

I’m sure that a lot of you have, at some point, understood the struggle of reading Shakespeare plays during our school days. Of course, we have always been taught that William Shakespeare, the Bard himself, whose works have survived for over a whopping four centuries later, is one of the most timeless and classic playwrights ever. And hey, I am certainly not one to doubt that; Shakespeare’s vast repertoire offers a variety of genres, historical events, themes, and plotlines with an intelligence and wit that will always be considered pertinent. As a Canadian living in Toronto, “Shakespeare for Kids” versions…

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Books

Man Booker Dozen – The 2018 Man Booker Prize Longlist!

The longlist, or the “Man Booker Dozen” was announced earlier this week and I am so excited. For those of you who may be unaware, the Man Booker is £50,000 prize to a writer from any nationality, writing in English and published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Prior to 2016, the Man Booker Prize had been open to only citizens of commonwealth countries. As such it had become a part of British literary culture. However, since 2016 it has been opened up and the last two winners have been from the United States. This might suggest an opening up…

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Books

Introducing the “Canongate Myth Series” Book Reviews

One of the things I was absolutely obsessed with as a kid was mythology and folklore of any kind. If it had to do with old-time gods and impossibly perfect heroes and heroines, I would be drawn to it. Things like Hercules had be as excited as the muses. So, obviously, the moment I heard about the Canongate Myth Series, I jumped on it. Conceived in 1999, the project aimed to have authors rewrite a myth in a series of short novels. The first books of this series came out in 2005 with Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth,…

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Books

Why Re-Reading is a Good Thing

Finding yourself in a funk? Six months into the year and forgetting all your New Year’s Resolutions? You and me both! We are officially half way through the year, and as it tends to be, most of us have fallen off our resolutions. Typical. Whether it be going to the gym, reading, eating, or creativity related, by this point in the year life just catches up to us and keeping up with those pesky resolutions seems impossible. Worse than that, trying to find the motivation for them can sometimes be even more difficult. And that’s where I am finding myself…

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Books

Sleeping Giants Book Review

Do you ever have those books where you just tear through them and then can’t remember what your life was like before having read it? Well that was how I felt last week after finishing Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel .My life was not forever changed, or made any different by reading the novel really, but there was something about it that felt inescapable and undoubtedly right. Now, that might seem like a rather odd thing to say about a book, but looking back, the thought of that story not being in my mind seems incredibly odd. The novel, set up in…

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Books

Giving Jane Austen a Chance

How many times have you heard something along the lines of “Jane Austen’s books are girly”, or met people that believe Austen’s books are only geared towards female readers? If you haven’t heard such a thing, then consider yourself lucky, because I’ve heard it too many times. The problem with making such a sweeping generalization is that it gives a completely false and reductive summarization Austen’s works, as well as fostering toxic sexist notions (eg. that it would be emasculating for a male to read Austen). In actuality, Jane Austen has written some of the most feminist-fuelled, challenging, satirical, and…

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