I must have been emitting some negative juju today as the universe has returned the negative vibe by crippling my first post. I was writing spontaneously, sort of, with my only guideline being a few notes I scribbled down on the back of an envelope while sitting on the bus. I typed them in, hit […]
Note to true-crime writers: Watch your backs
By guest blogger Brian Brennan The Robert William Pickton murder trial has started in New Westminster Supreme Court with 350 media types from around the world accredited to cover the case. Most of these reporters — including two former Vancouver prostitutes blogging for the so-called “citizen journalism” website, orato.com — are filing for same-day or […]
Publish the damn book
By Frank Moher Rupert Murdoch has spoken, and now O.J.’s book and TV interview are gone. The Juice has been squeezed out. And everywhere, of course, newly-minted moralists proclaim that The Right Thing Has Been Done. Not since Mel Gibson’s drunk driving arrest has so much fatuity been heard in one 24 hour period. Of […]
The Streyn is showing
By Frank Moher Here at backofthebook.ca we’ve done a rigorous scientific study and determined that Mark Steyn has used the personal pronoun “I” precisely 1,546,784 times since beginning his “Books” column for Maclean’s. We’d provide documentation of our rigorous scientific study, but this is the internet, so we don’t have to. But if, say, our […]
We are not The Walrus. (Or Maclean’s. Or, god-save-us, the Western Standard.)
By Frank Moher Does a magazine’s title determine its chances of success? It doesn’t seem to. The Walrus, having weathered that not-paying-freelancers-on-time thing, seems to be doing all right, despite being named . . . The Walrus. And despite being . . . dull. (The Walrus reminds me of nothing so much as The New […]