Jeannie Marshall lived in Rome for 12 years before setting foot inside the Sistine Chapel. “I could hardly bear the thought of standing amongst a crowd only to look at something that seemed simultaneously too complex to be understood just by looking at it and too worn out from overexposure,”[Read More…]
Books
‘Strange Bewildering Time’ is a time capsule of forgotten history
Forty years ago, author and poet Mark Abley went on a three-month journey that changed his outlook on life. Accompanied by his friend Clare, the two travelled through several countries during the last year of the Hippie trail, at a time when it seemed that travel within Asia was cheap,[Read More…]
“There’s Nothing More Queer than Nature”: A Q&A with Ann-Marie MacDonald
Spoilers ahead for Fayne Award-winning playwright, novelist, actress, and broadcaster Ann-Marie MacDonald has written her “youngest and most joyful” novel to date. Fayne is set in 19th-century Britain and yet entirely modern in feel. The book is a sprawling, ornately detailed, and genre-defying epic that follows the precocious Charlotte Bell[Read More…]
Biblioasis Fall 2022 highlights: ‘Ordinary Wonder Tales’ and ‘This Time, That Place’
Since 2004, the Canadian publishing company Biblioasis has remained committed to publishing intimate and creative works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from authors across the world. As the fall semester comes to a close and students finally get the opportunity to read and decompress during winter break, The McGill Tribune[Read More…]
Write a novel in 30 days: Time starts now
While a 2,000-word paper may be a daunting task for some students, others take on a greater and even more creatively stimulating challenge—writing 50,000 words to draft an entire novel over the course of November. Besides being known as the month when exams start to loom, it also hosts National[Read More…]
‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’ is a moving, yet disappointing memoir
When thinking of Matthew Perry, it is nearly impossible to separate him from his popular role on the hit TV show Friends. While his name has largely been synonymous with Chandler Bing, it also is associated with a much more stigmatized term—addict. In Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,[Read More…]
‘Scenes from the Underground’ centres queer rave culture around the world
McGill alumnus Gabriel Cholette (MA ‘17) started his writing career by publishing true vignette-style stories about queer sex and party culture on an anonymous Instagram account for his friends. The vignettes range in length from a single sentence to a three-page whirlwind, with settings from Montreal to Berlin, but all[Read More…]
What we liked this fall reading break
As the second official Fall Reading Week comes to a close and McGill students are thrust back into the throes of midterm season, downtime can feel like a fleeting dream. For students who have time to read non-academic books or for those looking for a new study soundtrack, here are[Read More…]
Albert Camus: A visionary of pandemic-era life?
Albert Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague masterfully portrays the death and suffering that a fictional bubonic plague brings to the people of Oran, an Algerian city under French colonial rule. The events take place over many months, with protagonist Dr. Rieux working to both physically and psychologically help others suffering[Read More…]
The young adult dystopian genre is too close for comfort
When many think of the young adult (YA) dystopian genre, both in literature and in film, The Hunger Games immediately comes to mind as one of the defining trilogies of the category. The Hunger Games hit the big screen 10 years ago and made nearly $700 million in worldwide sales.[Read More…]
