The devil’s advocate: Toronto Star entertainment editor Doug Brod on the demonic appeal of Anton LaVey
"He was essentially a horror movie, comic book geek," Brod says.
High spirits: Food and travel writer Evan Rail examines the story of a counterfeiter who trafficked in fake bottles of one of the world’s most notorious tipples
What is most fascinating about Rail's story is not so much the forger, but everything surrounding him.
Hunger, anxiety, and pain are among the human drives horror addresses, according to Anna Bogutskaya in Feeding the Monster
At its best, horror has always skirted an anarchic or illicit sensibility.
Horror 101: Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary offers a cursory overview of more than 300 years worth of scares
As a primer for the uninitiated, American Scary has a certain value.
What a rush: Investigative reporter Max Marshall details how a Southern U.S. fraternity became the hub for an extensive drug-running operation
The tale Marshall unfolds is a narrative of crime and hubris among the scions of the country's elite establishment members.
A book first published sixty-two years ago helps explain the weird quasi-reality we are living through
So much of what Boorstin itemizes now seems inevitable it's difficult to countenance how groundbreaking his analysis was in its own time.
In Consent, Montreal-born author Jill Ciment revisits her earlier book to raise questions about the memoir as a vessel for truth telling
Ciment does not ultimately answer any questions, content to let her reader sit with them.
Can’t start a fire without a spark: Steven Hyden’s examines the legacy of Bruce Springsteen’s most popular album
Hyden's book reads a bit like a requiem for a more innocent time.
Salman Rushdie’s terse memoir offers a highly personal reckoning with the public attack that almost claimed his life
"Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist."
More, more, more: Becca Rothfeld extols the virtues of excess in her debut volume of essays
Wanting in Rothfeld's analysis is the recognition of how difficult it is to compose a short yet consequential piece of writing.