Sarah Stilton Review: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari (Signal, $45, 492 pages) Yuval Noah Harari is something of a rock star public intellectual who burst onto the scene with his 2014 book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, originally published in Hebrew in 2011. Previously a military historian, the Oxford-trained [...]
The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party Michael Tackett (Simon & Schuster, $44, 397 pages) Michael Tackett’s The Price of Power is a mainstream journalist’s fair-minded account of one of the most important elected figures in U.S. history, a man whose mastering of Senate procedures led him to command and control his party [...]
Paul Tuns Review: We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine by Jordan Peterson (Portfolio, $48, 544 pages) Former University of Toronto psychology professor and international darling of the Right Jordan Peterson’s fourth book, We Who Wrestle with God seems to have landed with a thud after two bestselling self-help books. The massive tome is an exegesis on Genesis, Exodus, and [...]
Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments Joe Posnanski (Dutton, $39.99, 392) Joe Posnanski is one of the best sportswriters in the biz because he is fundamentally human and humane when writing about his subject. In Why We Love Football he explores 90 important moments and ten of the best players in NFL history to show why sports can be [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements Reviewing journalist Barbara Amiel’s memoir here a few years ago, what struck me most was an observation she made about her time in transatlantic high society, when her husband Conrad Black’s success and fame was at its peak. She was adopted by a circle of rich women, the wives of rich men – [...]
Review Takedown: Inside the Fight to Shut Down Pornhub for Child Abuse, Rape and Sex Trafficking (Thesis, $39.99, 304 pages) Takedown is the autobiographical story of one woman’s battle to expose and shutdown one of the internet’s most visited websites, Pornhub. The Canadian-owned pornography aggregator is the 10th most visited website on the internet, infested with child sexual abuse, rape videos, and [...]
The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves Alexandra Hudson (St. Martin’s Press, $39, 416 pages) Alexandra Hudson wrote her book about civility after witnessing first-hand the incivility in Washington D.C. first hand while working for the Department of Education. Her hardship in government is a blessing for readers, for Hudson might not have written about civility had she [...]
Rabble, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized Mike Aquilina (Ignatius, $23.50,206 pages) Mike Aquilina is the best-selling author and president of the St. Pauls’ Center for Biblical Theology. His latest book, Rabble, Riots, and Ruins, is an examination of how a dozen famous ancient pagan cities were Christianized: Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, Edessa (Urfa, Turkey), Lugdunum [...]
The Chicago Manual of Style 18 University of Chicago Staff (University of Chicago Press, $97.50, 1180 pages) The offices of The Interim have used the latest Chicago Manual of Style since its present editor took charge of the paper in 2000. While the paper does not adhere to its stylistic conventions (we follow Canadian Press style), it is a regularly consulted guide. [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life (Sutherland Books, $35.95, 212 pages) Former Interim columnist Andrew Lawton has written a biography about Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a book which will help readers understand how an adopted, middle class, politically obsessed kid from Calgary rose to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Lawton’s book is a well-researched, based on newspaper stories [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Ethics for Beginners: Big Ideas from 32 Great Minds by Peter Kreeft (Word on Fire, $32.50 pb, 260 pages) Peter Kreeft may be the best living explainer of philosophy and in his most recent book he examines what some of the greatest minds in history had to say about ethics. Ethics for Beginners is a book for “intelligent beginners” who [...]
On Heroes: The Annotated Carlyle Thomas Carlyle, edited by Edward Maxwell III (Imperium Press, $11 pb, 332 pages) Thomas Carlyle was a 19th century historian, philosopher, and social critic best known for his Great Man Theory of History which argues that history is shaped by exceptional individuals who take command of events. The argument was first made in his lecture “On Heroes,” [...]
Sarah Stilton, Review: Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler (Knopf, $37, 320 pages) Judith Butler is a famous, or infamous, feminist and leading influence on gender theory through her earlier works such as Gender Trouble, Undoing Gender, and Bodies that Matter. This year she returns to the topic in Who’s Afraid Gender? which undermines many of her earlier arguments. Three decades ago, [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game by Matt Hoven (Catholic University of America, $38.95 pb, 339 pages) Fr. David Bauer was born in Waterloo, Ont., in 1924 and would later attend St. Michael’s College School in Toronto, which was run by the Basilian Fathers. He joined their religious community and coached the St. Michael’s [...]
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press, $48, 511 pages) Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and the author of the bestselling Behave. In Determined he delves into the scientific case against free will by explaining both the science of the brain and the epigenetic influences on how the brain [...]