ACCENTi

Anthony Bonato Anthony Bonato is a mathematician and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he studies the networks that govern how we live and think. He is the author of Dots and Lines: Hidden Networks in Social Media, AI, and Nature (2025), a behind-the-scenes look at how networks reveal reality and shape everything – from Bitcoin transactions to neural connections, and from political landscapes to climate patterns. He also writes science fiction.

Melanzane chini (photo by the author) Many of us think of late summer and early fall as tomato-sauce-making season. But this time of year also elicits memories of another culinary tradition for many Southern Italians – stuffed eggplants! Stuffed eggplants (melanzane ripiene or chini in the Calabrese dialect) always trigger bittersweet memories that remind me of my mom. Making them was an end-of-summer ritual that involved our entire family.

Maria Giura Maria Giura followed her first collection of poems, What My Father Taught Me (Bordighera Press, 2018), with her memoir, Celibate (Apprentice House Press, 2019), which won an Independent Press Award. Her most recent volume of poems, If We Still Lived Where I was Born, (Bordighera Press, 2025), was the recipient of the 2026 Paterson Book Prize.

From left to right, Trending Sports Podcasters Gian-Carlo Albertson, James de Sua (standing), & Wes Ruggi, with UFC fighter Charles Jourdain (centre). (Photo: TSP) Trending Sports Podcast (TSP) was created in 2025 by Montreal sports fans Gian-Carlo Albertson, 25 – a former junior hockey player, James De Sua, 23 – a former hockey goaltender, and Westley (Wes) Ruggi, 25 – a hockey referee.

Espresso is the country’s most successfully exported word, and its most misunderstood ritual. Notes from the import side. At twenty to eight on a weekday morning, a bar in Bologna performs a piece of theatre so ordinary that nobody in it knows they are performing. A man in a suit says one word, “un caffè,” and does not specify further, because there is nothing further to specify. A small cup lands in front of him before he has finished unfolding his newspaper.

Closing Ceremonies and Dying Times (Guernica Editions, 2026; 300 pp), the latest title from Darlene Madott, is not one book but two. Closing Ceremonies is a collection of interconnected stories that hinge on Francesca Malotti getting a second chance at love when she meets Scott Tartaglia in her mid-forties, following her divorce. After twenty years together, Scott ends their relationship with no explanation.

Espresso is the country’s most successfully exported word, and its most…

My mother lived between two worlds. In Rome, Where the folds of family And the beauty of antiquity Resided, And Canada, the place my father chose to move to, in search of something my mother had no part in. Somewhere between these two worlds Lay a promise.

My mother lived between two worlds. In Rome, Where the folds of family And the beauty of…

St John the Baptist (John in the Wilderness) by Caravaggio (c 1604). Photo: F Crescia The life and art of Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio (1571-1610) is currently experiencing a worldwide revival. Three new books on his life were published in 2025 alone, and several documentaries and docudramas have been produced in English and Italian over the last few years.