The conflict between eating and ethics can seem intractable – at what point does one sacrifice pleasure for the sake of sustainability? Montreal’s Taras Grescoe, who’s no ascetic when it comes to culinary indulgence, approaches ... Read More »

Acclaimed novelist, poet … psychic? After chanelling our societal anxiety over the environment in her novel Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood has proven once again that she has her finger firmly on the pulse of ... Read More »

With his two novels (Dirty Sweet was the first), John McFetridge has mastered a very American form, the urban police thriller, and put it to work in the very Canadian setting of Toronto. Everybody Knows ... Read More »

Stunt by Claudia Dey (Coach House books, designed by Jason Logan) Stunt caught my attention when I first saw it. Is it a truly great cover? Perhaps not. But it works. The huge knot is ... Read More »

Rookie of the year Launched by Broadview Press and headed up by editor Melanie Little (an author herself), the new literary imprint Freehand Books debuted this fall with just four titles. And one of them, ... Read More »

I’m quite pleased that Marina Endicott made the Giller shortlist. Good to a Fault is a novel of big questions and ideas that moves with urgency, and it’s extremely well written and carefully edited. It’s ... Read More »

At first, it seemed that the most notable thing about Andrew Davidson’s debut novel was its $1-million-plus advance. But give Davidson and his publishers credit: unlike many similar big bets, the final product connected with ... Read More »

The stories in Rebecca Rosenblum’s debut collection are about students and waitresses, hotel cleaners and warehouse workers – people who don’t often appear as central figures in Canadian fiction. The stories take up the subjects ... Read More »

The subtitle of Kenneth J. Harvey’s stylistically ambitious, 850-page powerhouse of a novel is a sly acknowledgment of the way the book calls into question accepted notions of history and truth. Employing a fractured, multivocal ... Read More »