Detail from the cover of “How to Make Love to a Movie Star” by Norman Snider
Hyena
By Mikita Brottman, Reaktion, 167 pages, $20.95
Is there a creature more unlovely and less loved, or more loathed, than the hyena, the slope-backed, mighty-jawed, yammering, cowardly skulker of the night? In much of Africa, hyenas are no laughing matter; more feared than lions, they have been known to come into villages and carry off children. But in the latest entry in this invaluable (if sometimes uneven) series on individual animals, U.S. psychoanalyst and cultural critic Mikita Brottman reassesses these maligned creatures. Hyenas, she claims convincingly, are complex, intelligent and highly social – and can even be easily trained to live with human beings. She also examines the hyena as a totemic object in tribal culture (amulets to avert evil woven from its hairs, virility treatments) as well as the portrayal of hyenas in such works as Life of Pi, The Lion King and the Tarzan novels, where they come off less well. As usual, beautifully and plentifully illustrated.
Tubes
A Journey to the Center of the Internet, by Andrew Blum, HarperCollins, 294 pages, $29.99
Think you know the online world? Andrew Blum wants to introduce you to what might be called the inline world, creating a mental map of the Internet's physical structure. This is a more-than-useful exercise by the New York-based technological journalist, since so many of us live a significant portion of our lives online. There's probably not a better guide to this unexplored cyber-country, made up not of lakes, mountains and cities, but of data centres, hubs (Canadian content here), fibre optics, routers and switches – and a whole lot of engineering. Weaving his technical knowledge with on-the-spot interviews and astonishing facts (off the coast of Portugal, a cable just two thumb-widths stretches 10,000 miles, connecting Europe with Africa), Blum has created a lively guide to the very physical world upon which our cyber-lives depend.
How To Make Love to a Movie Star
Writing for Film, by Norman Snider, 184 pages, $22.95
Norman Snider, Canadian author, teacher (at the University of Toronto) and screenplay writer (Dead Ringers, Call Me, Rated X), uses 25 years of expertise and lecturing experience to offer an expert guide to the secrets of writing for the movies, including dramatic structure, characters and story development. He discusses the writer's role in the process of making a film or television program, in both Canada and Hollywood, especially collaboration and the practical details of writing for commercial productions. Chapters discuss characters and the relations among them, settings, structure ranging from the classic three acts to the modern variations, the uses of suspense, dialogue and description, action, humour and adaptation. Snider also discusses the business side of the industry, including agents and producer, and the difficulties of breaking into the industry.