Brian Bethune

Brian Bethune writes about ideas, books and the book trade, and religion, but what really interests him is why people believe what they believe.

A series about a romance with a tall, dark, handsome and deadly stranger is a hit with sexually curious adolescents

Two new releases—both, I’m willing to venture, destined for bestsellerdom—offer in their own ways exquisite reminders of how...

Well, now we know what Philip Pullman meant by his cryptic comment, made just before the London premiere of , to the effect that...

There never was (or will be) a literary prize short list that everybody in the book trade can agree with. That’s natural...

There is much to admire Helen Humphreys’ writing. Sustained lyricism that rarely escapes control and a gift for precise and...

Hockey aside, Canadians have always been rather bad at myth making. Part of it is the (relative) absence of heroic violence in the...

J.K. Rowling, just about the only author who could command a full media conference at 8 a.m on a rainy Tuesday (especially without...

I swear I tried, while watching the unspeakable travesty that is film, to put aside the knowledge that it had been made from a...