Tuco: The Parrot, the Others, and a Scattershot World

The pet memoir is an unfairly maligned genre, a fact only emphasized by the reactions I received when I said I was really enjoying a book about a man and his parrot. We tend to ... Read More »

October 1, 2015 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

The Prison Book Club

By Ann Walmsley

Ian Brown’s 2009 memoir, The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son – an unvarnished, heartrending account of Brown’s efforts to connect with his uncommunicative, seriously disabled child – struck a ... Read More »

September 28, 2015 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

The Lake

By Perrine Leblanc; Lazer Lederhendler (trans.)

To read part one of The Lake, Perrine Leblanc’s follow-up to her Governor General’s Literary Award–winning first novel, Kolia, is to savour enough narrative eeriness to satisfy any David Lynch fan. In spare, allusive language, ... Read More »

September 24, 2015 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun

By A.J. Somerset

Earlier this year, a YouTube clip of comedian Jim Jefferies talking about gun control in America went viral (the clip has since been taken down due to a copyright claim). Jefferies, an Australian, took direct ... Read More »

September 21, 2015 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

★ Sleep

By Nino Ricci

Seven years after the publication of his Governor General’s Literary Award–winning novel, The Origin of Species, Nino Ricci hits readers hard with a scorched-black account of a tormented man’s decline into sleeplessness and self-destruction. Sleep, ... Read More »

September 17, 2015 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations

By Eli Rubenstein; March of the Living

In 2014, the United Nations sponsored a touring exhibit titled “When You Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness.” The photographs and accompanying text comprised profiles and accounts of Holocaust survivors intended to educate ... Read More »

September 17, 2015 | Filed under: History

★ The Heart Goes Last

By Margaret Atwood

As one might expect, given her recent MaddAddam trilogy – and, of course, The Handmaid’s Tale – the near-future as imagined by Margaret Atwood in The Heart Goes Last is bleak indeed. Following a “big ... Read More »

September 11, 2015 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Sistering

By Jennifer Quist

Jennifer Quist won the 2014 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award for her first novel, Love Letters of the Angels of Death. Her follow-up, Sistering, explores the complex relationships of five sisters who are ... Read More »

September 9, 2015 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Light Years

By Caroline Woodward

When we embark on dream-chasing, life-altering decisions, we often look for signs and signals to guide us on our way. We imbue the smallest things with meaning, giving our choices purpose, attempting to prove, despite ... Read More »

September 9, 2015 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

★ Mouthquake

By Daniel Allen Cox

Daniel Allen Cox’s fourth novel, Mouthquake, is his most assured and accomplished to date. It opens on an anonymous young boy in Montreal who speaks with a stutter, conceives of himself as a German shepherd, ... Read More »