Phone Number
Phone Number
Checkout ()
Browse Store
Bookstore Cinema eBar
  • Home
  • Reviews
    • Page Turners & Pot Boilers
    • Literary
    • Non-Fiction
  • Browse Sections
    • Adult Non-Fiction
    • Adult Fiction
  • Browse Kids & YA
    • All Kids
    • Young Adult
    • Ages 0-6
    • Ages 7-10
    • Ages 10-14
  • Wine
  • Hours & Contact Info
  • Consignment Policy
  • Cinema Tickets
IT'S A MYSTERY!

The Perfect Nanny: A Novel

By Leila Slimani

In the store

Called a masterpiece and a brilliant exploration of the collision of race, genre, and class wrapped up in a gripping psychological thriller.

The English Teacher: A Novel

By Yiftach Reicher Atir, Philip Simpson

In the store

Yiftach Atir is a retired Israeli intelligence officer who writes like a poet about the double life of those trapped in the world of espionage.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye

By Michael Connelly

In the store

Can't go wrong with Connelly! Great details about police procedures.

Roseanna: A Martin Beck Police Mystery (1)

By Henning Mankell, Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo

In the store

Introduction by Henning Mankell for the husband and wife team who started Scandinavian Noir in the 70's.

Coffin Road

By Peter May

In the store

In his latest mystery set in Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, award-winning author Peter May spins a tale about three disparate cases that may or may not be linked.

The Twenty-Three

By Linwood Barclay

In the store

Canadian mystery writer Linwood Barclay is one of Stephen King's favourite mystery writers!

The Sympathizer: A Novel

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

In the store

Last year's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Sympathizer is described as a thriller. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain is actually a communist sleeper agent in the United States.

The Woman in the Window: A Novel

By A. J. Finn

In the store

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one-and nothing-is what it seems.

Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THE MOVIE!

The Sense of an Ending

By Julian Barnes

In the store

The star of the movie, Jim Broadbent, is such a suitable match for the elegant and memorable words of Juian Barnes. This novel reveals how a life unlived beneath the surface can affect all of one's interactions for years.

The Global Forest: Forty Ways Trees Can Save Us

By Diana Beresford-Kroeger

In the store

After seeing this movie Call of the Forest and reading this book, or visa versa, you will understand why Canadian botanist and medical biochemist Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a hero in the fight to help people understand the importance of the natural world.

I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck

By James Baldwin, Raoul Peck

In the store

The powerful and prescient words of James Baldwin are laid bare in this moving and still timely book and movie.

A Man Called Ove

By Fredrik Backman

In the store

Ove has been a bestseller everywhere! Bitter sweet, and hard not to love!

Paterson

By William Carlos Williams

In the store

Considered one of the greatest poets of the 20 century, William Carlos Williams wrote about life of his hometown, Paterson, New Jersey, in a series of poems called Paterson. Jim Jarmusch's movie of the same name evokes much of the feel of the city with Adam Driver playing the role of a citizen whose last name is Paterson. Lots of sweetness and love here.

Lion (Movie tie-in edition)

By Saroo Brierley

In the store

Lion is a moving, poignant, and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit: hope.

Fences (Movie tie-in)

By August Wilson

In the store

From legendary playwright August Wilson, the powerful, stunning dramatic work that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.

Page Turners & Pot Boilers

REVIEW: A HERO OF OUR TIME

Article By Andrew Hood

Date: 16 Jan 2022

Share On

Related...

A Hero of Our Time: A Novel
Find You in the Dark
Important conversations are important, but they're tricky to get off the ground. Ideas can be honed to a glinting degree of unassailability, but the turds that most people are, unfortunately, can only get polished so much. We are a mess of contradictions and inelegances, cramjamed with inherited and fostered prejudices, and we can't help but smear our muck over every nice thing we handle. 
 
Naben Ruthnum's new novel, the first under his own name, is messy like a person. It's as brilliant as it is petty and sharp as it slovenly. But its messiness is an artful triumph. A Hero of Our Time is narrated, and--a rare thing for first person narratives--written by Osman Shah. Osman, whose self-loathing results in some of the finest pearls of prose, works for AAP, a tech company driven to revolutionize education. Osman represents a ticked box in a world obsessed with the appearance of diversity. He knows it and he uses it to his advantage. "Certain stories," he opens his own story, "are for wielding, not telling." 
 
His go-to story concerns an incident of racial profiling at the airport. "More of a joke, a few lines of generic airport experience and television borrowings honed into a minor weapon for use in business situations." Properly wielded, the story is meant to make its largely white audience aware racial difference and all the attendant inequality, while at the same time breaking the rime of racial tension. "Anyone," Osman observes, "who takes pleasure in rendering even brief power from goodwill and fear is shit. When I used this story, I was no exception." The story is by-and-large innocuous until it's appropriated by a colleague and the novel's apparent villain, Olivia Robinson. In telling the story, and letting it fall into the hands of Olivia, Osman unwittingly assists his villain-to-be's takeover of the company. 
 
Once sterling notions of diversity and equality are exploited and weaponized in A Hero of Our Time, any inherent goodness in the concepts exhausted and perverted. The book resists easy assessment, because it resists easy stances. As much as it presents an easy criticism of white exploitation, it also grapples with the idea appropriating ones own culture for the purposes of scaling white power structures. Each character--at least as they're presented by the author, Osman--operates behind ever-changing facades that are never exactly real or fake.
 
There is something for everyone in this novel. Each reader will recognize the shortcomings of others and hopefully spot and dwell on their own in the always-complicated, always-embarassing groping at the ideals of good and right and just. Ruthnum is scathing and he's allowed to be because he never misses. For a book about falsities and facades, A Hero of Our Time is so excitingly true.
Go To Page Turners & Pot Boilers
  • The Bookshelf

    • 41 Quebec Street
      Guelph Ontario
      519.821.3311
  • Bookstore

    • Books, Magazines, Games & Gifts
    • Read Reviews & Interviews
    • Follow Columns & Articles
  • Cinema

    • Now Playing
    • Film Reviews
    • Cult Cinema
  • eBar

    • Dinner & A Movie
    • Live Music
    • DJ's & Dancing
    • Comedy & Burlesque
    • Special Events

A bookstore that shows movies • a cinema that serves dinner • a resto-bar that launches books