The Minted

With his debut novel, author Will McClelland gleefully embraces a swath of clichés about both CanLit and Canadian identity, and turns them – resoundingly and to tremendous effect – on their heads. The Minted, after ... Read More »

October 26, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

No News Is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse – And What Comes Next

By Ian Gill

If you don’t know what’s been happening to the news business these days, you haven’t been following the news. The story is by now familiar. Print is locked in a death spiral, starved for revenue ... Read More »

October 17, 2016 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada

By Shannon Stettner (ed.)

In 1969, abortion was legalized in Canada, but only when the procedure was performed in a hospital and had been approved by a committee of doctors. In response to these restrictions, activists launched the cross-country ... Read More »

October 17, 2016 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

Into the Current

By Jared Young

Framing a character’s life in such a way that there is a worthy purpose for telling their story, while also avoiding the monotony of cliché, is a meticulous undertaking. In his debut novel, Ottawa writer ... Read More »

October 17, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada’s Water Crisis

By Maude Barlow

With 2016 on track to shatter heat and drought records, the crises of climate change and declining freshwater supplies that have long afflicted the global south are increasingly appearing in Canada, where the seemingly unlimited ... Read More »

October 13, 2016 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs, Science, Technology & Environment

The Witches of New York

By Ami McKay

For a novel that purports to be about female rebellion, Ami McKay’s The Witches of New York is uncomfortably twee. It tells the story of Adelaide Thom (who figured, as Moth, in McKay’s previous novel, ... Read More »

October 13, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Don’t I Know You?

By Marni Jackson

While the pop-culture imprint of the music video for Kanye West’s “Famous” was less indelible than its creator expected, the clip’s basic thesis holds up: “Celebrities – they’re just like us!” The floating, Lost Highway–like ... Read More »

October 11, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Last Bullet Is for You

By Martine Delvaux; David Homel (trans.)

In June of 2012, at the age of 23, Quebec writer Vickie Gendreau was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. Her response was to write through the comingled grief, anger, confusion, and frustration that accompanied ... Read More »

October 5, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Belief

By Mayank Bhatt

Novelist Mayank Bhatt, who immigrated to Canada from Mumbai in 2008, delivers a taut, timely debut focused on one immigrant family and the devastating experience that threatens to destroy the life they have struggled to ... Read More »

October 5, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels