Climate change is transforming the Arctic, with impacts on the rest of the planet. A geographer explains why he once doubted that human actions were causing such shifts, and what changed his mind.
Dream of the Red Chamber, by Cao Xueqin, follows the travails of a pubescent boy. Somehow, through the spats, crushes and rivalries of a handful of teenagers, the great questions of the human condition are broached.
Tracker Tilmouth was a central and visionary figure in Aboriginal politics. His life is captured in Alexis Wright’s Tracker through the voices of many, rather than the tradition of European biography.
In this vision of the future, everything that we currently do in the real world – going to school, going to work, socialising, leisure – is done in a vast virtual environment.
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy’s famous novel, may be unfilmable – not because of its gruesome violent tale of U.S. imperialism in the Southwest, but because its religious vision is terrifying.
We may think of Harry Potter as escapist delight, but J.K. Rowling’s books also contain an extended theme that has more in common with King Lear than most English professors might care to admit.
No better time than winter to curl up with a good book. Novelist and English professor Randy Boyagoda shares a personal selection of five books from the Can-Lit shelves.