Black and White and Read All Over

Lynne Perras teaches communication arts at the University of Calgary.

In his latest amusing and witty collection, broadcaster, columnist, and
award-winning essayist Arthur Black tackles all manner of topics
relating to the joys and challenges of modern life as experienced by the
average Canadian. The book’s 90 short essays are divided into five
main sections: “Living Dangerously,” “Meandering, Mellifluous
Words,” “Nature Bats Last,” “Rules of Thumb,” and
“Tech#nop#ob!a.”

There is little that doesn’t inspire Black, a two-time winner of the
Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, as he contemplates commonplace objects
and events ranging from the failure of a particular apple to live up to
its name (“how come the Delicious isn’t?”) to the benefits of old
age (“Okay, so I’m a geezer. But there are certain privileges that
come with Geezerhood. I have, for instance, seen things that today’s
kiddies can scarcely imagine. Things like: Twelve-inch black and white
television sets.... And Kids with paper routes”).

Black and White and Read All Over both celebrates and pokes fun at the
strange and multi-faceted world in which we live.