I’m a big fan of storytelling; I can overlook a lot of the flaws in the movies I watch or books I read if it tells an interesting story. That’s why I was originally drawn to this collection of Robert Fulford’s contribution to the Massey Lectures; I wanted to see how stories shaped the world we live in and the culture we identify. It did that, and much more.

Each chapter / lecture in the book deals with narrative on a different level. Social narrative and gossip; history expressed as a master narrative; journalistic narrative and the news story; narrative in the postmodern era and the unreliable narrator; and finally, the mass-produced narratives of today’s culture and how they tie in with (of all things) Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. This book was remarkable; it was full of new information and it helped me get a different perspective on the world and my place in it. Highly recommended for anyone interested in communication, history, society, and good old-fashioned storytelling.