Category Archives: Reviews

“A life turned into art”

by JK

Writer, editor and journalist Jonathan Webb praised Douglas Gibson’s stage show on his blog otherpeoplesbooks. Webb, notes

Gibson has transformed his memories of literary acquaintances over the course of a lifetime into an infinitely expandable performance. It’s a trick he learned from the best. . . . He’s happy to impart secrets. The audience of more than fifty at the Bookshelf in Guelph on Friday night was pleased to be taken into his confidence. They came away with a bit of insight into how books are made. They heard a number of good stories. And they were treated to a masterful performance, a life turned into art.

Read the rest of the review here.

Literary Review of Canada: “His is a straining intelligence, ever onward”

by JK

Stories About Storytellers has been positively reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. Reviewer John Burns writes,

“Relives in 21 chapters the (few) perils and (many) pleasures of life in Canadian publishing. It is filled with markers of not just editorial diligence . . . but also a life well lived: friends drawn around a well-fortified table, scenes of children (Gibson’s and authors) playing soccer under indulgent supervision, much travel and adventure (usually to badger authors or celebrate their wins — or both) and even more hijinks. . . .

Let us celebrate Gibson’s enthusiasms. . . .  [and] Gibson’s gleeful encounters with Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, W.O.Mitchell, Pierre Trudeau, Robertson Davies, Peter Gzowski and others – all dead now, all fixed in the amber of the past.

Gibson is too bright, too spirited and too gentlemanly to prefer the past merely for its own sake. His is a straining intelligence, ever onward, as these accounts plainly show. . . .

With this book he reveals a little of the ugly duckling turned swan himself.”

The Walrus: “Gibson is a gossip of the first order”

by JK

Sasha Champman praised Stories About Storytellers in the December 2011 issue of The Walrus magazine. The review notes,

“Gibson’s forty years at the epicentre of Canadian publishing inform his rollicking first book, Stories About Storytellers. . . . Gibson is a gossip of the first order, the kind who tells all, or at least enough, about his subjects’ foibles, but always in a way that delights in their eccentricities. He writes with charming exuberance about his role as midwife to the memoirs of several prime ministers. . . . Likewise, Gibson’s stories profile not just storytellers, but also the country that produced them.”

Read the full review online here.

“An event worthy of Stephen Leacock. Charles Dickens even.”

by JK

Writer and broadcaster Nigel Beale live blogged Douglas Gibson’s stage show Stories About Storytellers at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Beale writes,

Gibson is an engaging, endearing — at times ebullient – animated storyteller, and a talented mimic. . . . Read Stories About Storytellers. It’s delightful fun. And if Gibson delivers his one man presentation of it at a Festival anywhere near you, run to it. It’s even better. Complete with music, it’s an event worthy of Stephen Leacock. Charles Dickens even.

Get a feel for the show by reading the live blog here.

“A hell of an interesting life” — The Globe and Mail

by JK

The Saturday, October 29th edition of the Globe and Mail contained Linda Leith’s positive review of Stories About Storytellers. Leith concludes,

“Gibson is an engaging and on the whole a modest figure and a very fine raconteur. He, too, has had a hell of an interesting life. His book makes for great reading, and he makes his life in publishing sound like great fun.”

Read the full review here.

The Saturday Globe also published several short excerpts from Stories About Storytellers. Read them here.

The London Free Press: “A bonanza for book lovers”

by JK

In this weekend’s London Free Press, reviewer Nancy Schiefer has nothing but good things to say about Stories About Storytellers. She calls it “a bonanza for book lovers” and concludes,

Gibson’s delightful, behind-the-scenes look at some of Canada’s most prominent writers is a remarkable, four-decade romp through the back rooms of publishing. It is a book which highlights the descriptive talents of Douglas Gibson himself, as good a storyteller as the writers he takes such pleasure in presenting.

Read the full review here.

Praise for Stories About Storytellers in the Edmonton Journal

by JK

This Sunday, the Edmonton Journal published a very fine review of Stories About Storytellers. Reviewer Robert Wiersema writes,

“For Gibson, in life and in this book, it all comes back to the writers. The writers and their books are central to Stories about Storytellers, and Gibson shows them to their best advantage, as he has been doing for 50 years. Every writer should be so blessed as to have an editor like Gibson in their corner; every reader should spend some time with his stories.”

Read the full review here.

Winnipeg Free Press praises the “Delighftul” Stories About Storytellers

by JK

Winnipeg Free Press Books reviewer Morley Walker praised Stories About Storytellers this past weekend, noting,

Here’s the thing about Douglas Gibson, Scottish immigrant and Toronto publisher extraordinaire. He has a greater appreciation of regional Canada than 99 per cent of those of us born here.

This genial memoir of his 40 years in the publishing racket, including 16 years at the helm of the country’s top literary house, McClelland & Stewart, takes readers from coast to coast and everywhere in between. . . .

Gibson joins such American giants as Michael Korda and Bennett Cerf in penning a gossipy memoir of his publishing life and times.

His delightful volume enriches the Canadian shelf beside Jack McClelland’s more selective letters, Imagining Canadian Literature (1998), and Roy MacSkimming’s stuffily comprehensive history, The Perilous Trade (2003). Anyone interested in CanLit will find much to enjoy here.

Read the full review here.

Brenda Davies on Stories About Storytellers

by JK

How do family members of the figures profiled in Stories About Storytellers feel about Doug Gibson’s account of their loved ones? The response has been nothing but positive. Brenda Davies, wife of Robertson Davies from 1940 until his death in 1993, took the time to write,

“Douglas Gibson has written an excellent account of Robertson Davies as the clever, witty, and wise man that he was.”