Marianne Ackerman

Reading this cri de cœur for Canada’s public broadcaster aroused a paradoxical reaction: first alarm, then a fierce desire to see the whole bureaucratic mess shaken up or shaken down.

An award-winning poet, anthologist, and teacher, Queyras took a decade to write Autobiography of Childhood.

One of the downsides of being a lifelong reader is that one rarely approaches a book innocently, free from the spoiler effects of hype and reputation. I was out of the country, away from the news this summer, when Peter Behrens’ novel The O’Briens came to me in a near pristine state.