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Articles by Paul Taunton
International and Canadian shortlists for 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize announced
The International and Canadian shortlists for The Griffin Poetry Prize were announced on April 12.The $65,000 prize is the world’s richest for poetry, and each finalist will receive $10,000 for participation in a reading on June 1 at Koerner Hall in Toronto (tickets on sale as of the shortlist announcement).The prizes will be awarded the following night on June 2.International ShortlistThe Quotations of Bone by Norman Dubie (Copper Canyon Press) Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy...
The problem with metrics is us, and other takeaways from The Tyranny of Metrics
You might remember when Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill made better baseball through math. They were, of course, portraying the Oakland Athletics’ Billy Beane and John DePodesta in Moneyball, the film based on Michael Lewis’s bestselling book. The rise of sabermetrics in baseball has corresponded to the exaltation of metrics across many other fields (e.g. Nate Silver’s Five-Thirty-Eight in politics; or the “numbers” person in your mathematically challenged office who just got promoted way past you).
The important lessons: Do the greatest team captains of all time actually want to be captains?
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. Click for lessons #1, #2, #3 and #4. Lesson #5: Do captains want to be captain? No, they want to win. “One of the great paradoxes of management is that the people who pursue leadership positions most ardently are often the wrong people for the job,” writes Walker.
The important lessons: Why the best team captains do everything they need to and what stars won’t do
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. Click for lessons #1, #2 and #3. Lesson #4: What do captains do? In short, everything they need to, and often what stars don’t want to do. They play defence; they do the grunt work; they are “water carriers,” according to Walker.
The important lessons: What makes for the perfect team captain?
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. Click for lessons #1 and #2. Walker sets out a series of attributes: They lack superstar talent – but more than make up for it. They aren’t fond of the spotlight – but aren’t afraid of it. They don’t “lead” in the traditional sense – it’s not Hollywood charisma. They are not angels – many of their most famous moments don’t make inspirational posters.
The important lessons: What do the best sports teams have in common?
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. For lesson #1, click here. Lesson #2: What do these teams have in common? Well, the book’s title gives it away.
The important lessons: Who can be considered the world’s greatest sports teams?
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. For lesson #1, click here. Lesson #1: Who are the best teams? Through his own complicated process, Sam Walker actually arrives at a stringent cutoff: a lot of the teams you’d expect to be in his top tier – the 1927 New York Yankees, the late ’70s Montreal Canadiens, Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls – aren’t.
‘You don’t have to “get” a poem’: Finalists for the Griffin Poetry Prize weigh in on their enduring form
The Griffin Poetry Prize annually brings some of Canada and the world’s best poets to Toronto, where most finalists will participate in a reading Wednesday evening at Koerner Hall (tickets available through The Royal Conservatory). The winners of the $65,000 Canadian and International prizes will be announced Thursday evening in the Distillery District. The National Post asked some of the finalists about their chosen form. Q: What poet or poem inspired you to write?
The important lessons: How much employer control is necessary for the profitable functioning of the firm?
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), by Elizabeth Anderson. For lesson #1, click here. Click for lessons #1, #2, #3 and #4. Lesson #5: How to meet in the middle A recurring point in Private Government is that libertarians frequently allow for domination in private enterprise that they would oppose from the state.
The important lessons: We may be concerned about government surveillance, but we give up our privacy to employers everyday
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), by Elizabeth Anderson. For lesson #1, click here. Click for lessons #1, #2 and #3. Despite widespread concern about government surveillance of the citizenry, we typically cede the right to privacy to employers each workday – and beyond. It is imagined, Anderson describes, that the private sphere is where government ends and individual liberties begin.
The important lessons: It’s hard for an employer to empathize with the work environment when he works upstairs
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), by Elizabeth Anderson. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, a master in a trade worked side-by-side with subordinates doing similar work – and therefore cared about working conditions to which he was also subject (it was, of course, always a he). Post-Industrial Revolution, employers usually don’t perform the same kind of work as employees.
The important lessons: Why firing an employee and quitting are not comparable
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), by Elizabeth Anderson. For lesson #1, click here. There is a misconception that the ability of an employer to fire and the ability of an employee to quit are comparable; that quitting, as Anderson puts it, “is equivalent to firing one’s boss.” But employees do not generally have means to remove a boss from within the organization.
The important lessons: How the Industrial Revolution brought an end to the free market
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), by Elizabeth Anderson. Lesson #1: Out of sight, out of mind Elizabeth Anderson, a professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the University of Michigan, asks a simple question: why do we allow employers control over our lives – even our non-work lives – to an extent that we would not allow the government? This is the jumping-off point for her book, Private Government.
The important questions: Should I buy a mechanized exoskeleton to lift my child without back pain?
One of the unexpected things about becoming a father is that any other dad whose child is even a few weeks younger than yours will look to you for advice. Within a year, the kids will be essentially the same age, but in the meantime, you are a resource. You’ve had a little more time to adjust, and maybe have even learned a few tricks along the way.
The important lessons: Why the re-urbanization of cities is making them more suburban in character
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It, by Richard Florida. Click for lessons #1, #2 and #3. Ironically, the re-urbanization of cities has had the effect of making them more suburban in character, writes Florida. He may be onto something: think of how often Manhattan is now described as an outdoor mall.
The important lessons: Why NIMBYism and rent-seeking behaviour poses a special challenge to cities
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It, by Richard Florida. For Lesson #1 and #2, click here. NIMBYism and “rentier” or rent-seeking behaviour poses a special challenge to cities.
The important lessons: The double-edged sword of superstar cities, like Toronto, New York and London
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It, by Richard Florida. For Lesson #1, click here. Toronto is tied with Stockholm for 10th on the list of superstar cities compiled by the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, where Florida is Director of Cities (New York, London and Tokyo are the top three).
The important lessons: Why ‘the new urban crisis’ is a victim of the new urbanism’s own success
This week’s non-fiction book of the week is The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It, by Richard Florida. Lesson #1: What is the “new urban crisis”?
How the kidnapping of Patty Hearst defined the decline of the counterculture in the 1970s
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst By Jeffrey Toobin Anchor 480; $22.95 When author Jeffrey Toobin was a teenager, he lived on the very block in New York City where a fugitive Patty Hearst hid out in the summer of 1974. “Did you see Patty Hearst? I didn’t see Patty Hearst,” he and his family joked afterwards. But Toobin doesn’t actually have much memory of following the case in real time.
Amazon.ca announces nominees for 41st annual First Novel Award
Amazon.ca and the Walrus Foundation announced the nominees for the 41st annual First Novel Award on April 15. Over four decades, the award has helped launch the careers of Michael Ondaatje, Joy Kogawa, Rohinton Mistry, Anne Michaels, André Alexis, Madeleine Thien and last year’s winner Mona Awad.
Remembering author David Halberstam, a decade since his death
It’s been 10 years this month since author David Halberstam was tragically killed in a car accident in Menlo Park, Calif. on April 23, 2007. The book he was working on at the time, about the legendary 1958 NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts, was posthumously taken over by Frank Gifford, who played in it the game for the Giants, and released as The Glory Game.
John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire sets the table for plenty of court intrigue
John Scalzi, bestselling science-fiction author of the Hugo Award-winning Redshirts, returns with a new series starting with The Collapsing Empire (Tor Books, 336 pp; $36.99). In the distant future, humanity lives in habitats scattered throughout the stars, connected by a series of hyperspace tunnels known as the Flow.
Fast food week: From the Wendy’s Frosty to the Dairy Queen Blizzard, the best and worst drive-thru desserts in Canada
In a way, dessert is at odds with the fast food experience. It is something to be lingered over, savoured with coffee or a digestif. Something at which to smile devilishly with your companion when the server asks if you are “tempted.” The fast food dessert, however, is more like, “Screw it, I’m already eating combo #4. Might as well shovel in a candy-strafed sundae right after.” If not before (it melts).
Polar dinosaurs roamed the earth, too, in polar forests: What we learned from Weird Dinosaurs
Weird Dinosaurs: The Strange New Fossils Challenging Everything We Thought We Knew By John Pickrell Columbia University Press 280 pp; $29.95 Though most of us have heard that birds are descended from dinosaurs, the idea of dinosaurs as “green or grey, dim-witted, lizard-like creatures” persists, according to John Pickrell. His new book, Weird Dinosaurs, demonstrates just how boring those misconceptions are.
What we learned from Goth: The Design, Art and Fashion of a Dark Subculture
Gothic fiction as a genre is widely traced to Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (subsequently subtitled “A Gothic Story”), which was published in England on Christmas Day of 1764. The book claimed to be a translation of a long-lost Italian text, and was well-received until that falsehood was exposed.
From Sophie Kinsella to Viet Thanh Nguyen, here are your buzz-worthy books for February
At the beginning of each month, the National Post’s Paul Taunton previews books that will be talked about over the next few weeks. Here’s what readers can look forward to this February – a short month that should be long on page-turning: All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (Doubleday Canada, 384 pp; $32) – Feb.
Canada Reads announces its panellists and shortlist, including André Alexis, M.G. Vassanji
CBC announced the panellists for the upcoming 16th edition of Canada Reads, which will be hosted by CBC Laugh Out Loud’s Ali Hassan from March 27–30.
David Lynch almost directed Return of the Jedi, and others things we learned from George Lucas: A Life
Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to sidebar David Lynch almost directed Return of the Jedi, and others things we learned from George Lucas: A LifePaul Taunton 01.18.2017cover-george-lucasGeorge Lucas: A Life By Brian Jay Jones Little, Brown and Company 560 pp; $42The creator of Star Wars needs no introduction, especially since we’ll be reintroduced to the franchise every year until a time far, far away.
From Kramer vs. Kramer to The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep’s greatest roles in films based on books
Amidst all the coverage about Meryl Streep’s condemnation of Donald Trump at the Golden Globe Awards, Keith Rice at literary website Signature highlighted Streep’s greatest roles in films based on book adaptations. His list included: Kramer vs.
From earning the Rockies to a life spent in baseball’s fast lane, five non-fiction titles to check out in 2017
It seems silly to reduce “everything that is real in the universe” to a category in books (non-fiction). But still, out of that everything there are five titles National Post books editor Paul Taunton is looking forward to reading in the coming months. Here they are. Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Place in the World by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 224 pp; $36) – Jan.
How Tony Bennett became Tony Bennett – all thanks to Bob Hope
Tony Bennett may be famous for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” but in his new book, Just Getting Started, (Harper, 288 pp; $34.99) he reveals that he’d “barely seen a cable car” the first time he sang it. Given to his piano player by a couple of aspiring songwriters, the music languished in an underwear drawer (of course?) until the musician stumbled on it while packing for a tour that included the city by the bay.
How Margaret Wise Brown’s children’s classic Goodnight Moon came to be
Though Margaret Wise Brown led a fascinating New York life, one story from In the Great Green Room, Amy Gary’s biography of the children’s book author (Flatiron Books, 304 pp; $37), is the tale behind her classic Goodnight Moon. It was inspired by a poem Brown wrote for a textbook that combined her childhood ritual of naming things at bedtime with the memory of moving to a new home and being relieved to find them there.
Could Denis Villeneuve’s Dune prove that the science-fiction classic is, after all, adaptable?
Frank Herbert’s epic science-fiction classic Dune has long been viewed as unadaptable, but not for lack of trying. The 2013 documentary Jodorowski’s Dune recalls the Chilean-French director’s failed attempt in the 1970s, though it remains influential for its vision (and designer H.R. Giger would become a force behind the Academy Award-winning visual effects of Alien).
First edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tops AbeBooks’ most expensive sales of 2016
Victoria, B.C.-based AbeBooks released its top 20 most expensive sales for 2016, a list dominated by famous names from the 19th and 20th centuries, including #3 Charles Dickens, #4 H.G. Wells, #7 Dr. Seuss, #10 Harper Lee, #11 F. Scott Fitzgerald and #16 Emily Dickinson, among others. The top spot, however, went to Lewis Carroll for an American first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, at a sale price of US$36,000.
How Drew Hayden Taylor’s native science-fiction collection explores the unusual through the usual
Take Us to Your Chief: And Other Stories By Drew Hayden Taylor Douglas & McIntyre 160 pp; $18.95 According to Drew Hayden Taylor, First Nations and science-fiction “are rather unusual topics to mention in the same sentence.” He calls them “a contradiction in terms.” Sadly, one of the more famous examples of “natives” in science-fiction is the Star Trek episode The Paradise Syndrome, in which, Taylor recalls, “Captain Kirk loses his memory and ends up living with these native people who were a...
CBC Canada Reads 2017 announces longlist, including Katherena Vermette, Vivek Shraya, André Alexis
Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to sidebar CBC Canada Reads 2017 announces longlist, including Katherena Vermette, Vivek Shraya, André AlexisPaul Taunton 12.19.2016canreadsThe upcoming edition of CBC Canada Reads, to be hosted this March by CBC Laugh Out Loud’s Ali Hassan, will debate the question: “What is the one book Canadians need now?” The longlisted books include:The Break by Katherena Vermette (House of Anansi Press)Company Town by Madeline Ashby (Tor Books)The Elephants in My...
Being a refugee is not a choice; it is the absence of choice: What we learned from Clare Morneau’s Kakuma Girls
Kakuma Girls: Sharing Stories of Hardship and Hope from Kakuma Refugee Camp By Clare Morneau and contributors Barlow Book Publishing 184 pp; $19.95 Kakuma Girls tells the stories of the students at the Morneau Shepell Secondary School for Girls at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, which houses refugees from all over Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tilda Swinton does not like Harry Potter. Why? Because boarding schools are ‘hell’
Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton is no fan of Harry Potter. In an interview with The Scots Magazine, Swinton, who resides in Scotland and is from an Anglo-Scottish family, struck an opposition to the glamorization of public boarding schools (that’s private boarding schools to you) – having attended boarding school herself. “Hell” and “a very lonely and isolating environment” are descriptions attributed to Swinton by the magazine.
From ‘Proud Mary’ to ‘Midnight Train to Georgia,’ the totally ridiculous inside stories behind some iconic hits
Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B, and Pop By Marc Myers Grove Press 336 pp; $37.50 Based on his Wall Street Journal column of the same name, Anatomy of a Song is a collection of interviews Marc Myers has done with musicians about the genesis of their famous songs. You will be shocked to learn that musicians don’t always do things the way your accountant or dentist would do them. But then, maybe your accountant just does it for the numbers, man.
‘I just like the feel of a book in my hands’: Analog isn’t going anywhere, as long as real things continue to matter
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter By David Sax Public Affairs 304 pp; $33.99 “I just like the feel of a book in my hands!” Despite living an otherwise digital world, this sentiment is almost impossible to avoid anytime the topic of eBooks comes up. While Silicon Valley might think those who try to stave off the inevitability of technological advances are behind the times, maybe they’re actually on to something.
The important questions: What factors do you need to consider before revealing who you were in a past life?
In this age of social media and rampant exhibitionism, lines are blurred in many situations, and it’s difficult to know how soon to share important revelations. For instance, how soon is too soon to tell someone new who you were in a past life? When is it “TMI” to share your most glamorous “RIP”? Fortunately, there are a few basic guidelines that can save you from an embarrassing gaffe about your transmigration: First, consider how many other people have been the same person in a past life.
‘I was just existing, now there’s a sense of why to live’: Romeo Dallaire on evolving trauma for soldiers, post-war
Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD By Roméo Dallaire Random House Canada 208 pp; $32 As Canada prepares to honour those who have served this Remembrance Day, Roméo Dallaire’s new memoir Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Struggle with PTSD (written with Jessica Dee Humphreys) is an important look at the plight of returning soldiers – especially as warfare has changed from professional armies facing off to more ambiguous rules of engagement.
Madeleine Thien wins Giller Prize for her ‘beautiful homage to music,’ Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Madeleine Thien has won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing, published by Knopf Canada. The $100,000 prize, founded in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife, journalist Doris Giller, has long been considered the pre-eminent prize in Canadian letters, and its gala the literary event of the year. This year’s ceremony took place at Toronto’s Ritz-Carlton with CBC Radio’s Steve Patterson hosting.
Yasuko Thanh, Deborah Campbell, Gregory Scofield among 2016 Writers’ Trust award winners
Victoria’s Yasuko Thanh won the $25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for her novel Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains (Hamish Hamilton), a fitting follow-up to her 2009 Journey Prize-winning story, Floating Like the Dead. This year’s winner of the $10,000 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize was Edmonton’s Colette Langlois for The Emigrants. Hosted by CBC Radio’s Tom Power, the 2016 Writers’ Trust Awards took place Wednesday night at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio.
From Elena Ferrante’s supposed memoir to a book about Polaroids, vinyl records and Settlers of Catan, here are your buzz-worthy books for November.
At the beginning of each month, the National Post’s Paul Taunton previews books that you’ll want to read and be seen reading over the next few weeks. Here’s what you can look forward to this November: Elena Ferrante’s “memoir” is already famous for its role in outing the pseudonymous author, and the discrepancies between it and her real life. But many of us assume that most memoirs (and sometimes the memoirists themselves) are creations.
Margaret Atwood explores Shakespeare’s richness and The Tempest’s darkness with Hag-Seed
The Hogarth Shakespeare is a series of novels based on the bard’s plays, including forays by Jeanette Winterson, Howard Jacobson, Anne Tyler and now Margaret Atwood. For the esteemed Canadian author, there was only one candidate from Shakespeare’s oeuvre to revisit: The Tempest and it’s protagonist, Prospero. “The Wizard of Oz, Prospero, Mephisto: they’re all artist figures, they all have a dark side, a dubious side to them,” Atwood says.
Trees communicate through scent because they’re just like us, and other things we learned from The Hidden Life of Trees
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World By Peter Wohlleben Greystone Books/David Suzuki Institute 288 pp; $29.95 The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a German forest manager, has become an international hit because – who knew – boring old trees are actually amazing! Here are your takeaways: Most nearby trees of the same species are connected through their root systems as a super-organism: nutrients and information are exchanged,...
Why some of us are always ‘bad with names’ and other things we learned from The Memory Illusion
The Memory Illusion: Why You Might Not Be Who You Think You Are By Dr. Julia Shaw Doubleday Canada 304 pp; $34 Our memories are frequently altered even as we remember them, which is why we sometimes tell a story slightly differently each time. In The Memory Illusion, Dr. Julia Shaw explores and explains how memories are made and maintained, shedding insight into why we occasionally change our story slightly from one time to the next.
Scotiabank Giller Prize announces longlist, including Emma Donoghue, Madeleine Thien, Zoe Whittall
The Scotiabank Giller Prize announced the longlist for the 2016 award Wednesday morning in Toronto. André Alexis won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel, Fifteen Dogs, published by Toronto’s Coach House Books.
Five takeaways from Ray Kroc’s Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s
Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s By Ray Kroc St. Martin’s Griffin 224 pp; $22.99 Fresh off the success of Birdman and Spotlight, Michael Keaton returns later this year in The Founder, a biopic about longtime McDonald’s head Ray Kroc. The film is based on Kroc’s memoir Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s, which has been recently reissued. Here are your takeaways: 1.
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