It is remarkable how Cleopatra’s story has remained relevant some two thousand years after her death. Her story was first told by Roman writers, such as Plutarch and Dio Cassius. Based on these written sources, Shakespeare wrote his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra in the seventeenth century. His words still resound with us today. Then in […]
On Friday November 8, the second session of the start-up Biographies! Book Club will feature Sarah Parcak’s 2019 book entitled "Archaeology from Space: How the Future shapes our Past." Come to the Discussion Room on the 3rd floor of the Toronto Reference Library from 2-3:30 pm and share your thoughts and opinions about how the future shapes […]
In honour of Valentine’s Day and lovers everywhere, there will be a Literary Treasures presentation on Thursday, Feburary 14th 2 – 3 pm in the Beeton Hall at the Toronto Reference Library. The focus will be a celebration of Harlequin’s 70 years as a Canadian success story. The very name Harlequin has become synonymous with the […]
Come to a Literary Treasures presentation on Friday October 26 at 7 PM at the Toronto Reference Library in the Discussion Room (on the 3rd Floor) by Steven B. Shubert, The Monster Awakes: The Mummy in 19th century Fiction It was two hundred years ago that Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Shelley) published her masterpiece of […]
Join us on Saturday, April 14th at 2 pm, at the Toronto Reference Library in the Discussion Room (3rd Floor), for a talk by Christopher Kelk entitled: "Juvenal: Ancient Rome's Greatest Curmudgeon! Why was He So Angry?" Photo used by permission Quintilian (Institutes 10.1.93-5) claimed that satire was a uniquely Roman invention, but satire is […]
You never know what you might find hidden in the stacks at the Toronto Reference Library. For example, there is a bay of books by the man who has been called Canada’s most prolific author (New Brunswick Consortium of Professional Writers), as well as the fastest fiction writer who ever lived (Alden Nowlan); that author […]
My generation, the generation born after World War II, but before the sixties, in many ways grew up in the long shadow cast by the two World Wars. We all had some family, teachers and neighbours who had lived through one or both of the World Wars: in uniform, on the home front, or as […]
Mark Twain, The Twins of Genius on Tour, George Washington Cable: Wikipedia Media Commons Mark Twain visited Toronto twice during his 1884-1885 North American lecture tour to prior to the publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was accompanied by fellow author George Washington Cable, on what became known as "The Twins of […]
Everyone knows Winston Churchill (1874-1965) the British Prime Minister during the Second World War. But there was another Winston Churchill (1871-1947), an American novelist, whose fame at the turn of the century surpassed that of his British contemporary. Winston Churchill (Novelist) and Winston Churchill (Statesman): Wikimedia Commons Churchill's first published novel was The Celebrity […]
When I think of Westerns, I think of films. Perhaps directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne on horseback and featuring views of Monument Valley. But the familiar features of the genre were first established in print fiction, and indeed many of the most classic Western films were originally Western novels. Photo: Wikimedia Commons "If […]