Quill and Quire

Reviews

Combustion

By Lorri Neilsen Glenn

Halifax poet laureate Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s second collection consists mostly of free-verse lyrics, prose poems, family memoirs, and occasional observations. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Canada Council director Robert Sirman’s recent plea ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Poetry

Missing the Ark

By Catherine Kidd

Mining the animal kingdom for metaphors for the human condition, this flawed first novel by acclaimed Montreal spoken word artist Catherine Kidd provides a fascinating look into the lives of animals and the craft of ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Tablecloth Trick

By Rick Crilly

Toronto writer Rick Crilly’s debut is labelled as “experimental fiction” by its publisher. This is a fair statement. To less than a hundred pages of fragmented narrative Crilly adds 54 footnotes and 20 endnotes that ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Right Away Monday

By Joel Thomas Hynes

Clayton Reid, the booze-besotted, drug-addicted ne’er-do-well at the centre of Joel Thomas Hynes’s second novel, bears a striking resemblance to Keith Kavanagh, the shiftless antihero of Down to the Dirt, Hynes’s 2004 debut. Both are ... Read More »

June 12, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bank

By David Bledin

The worlds of banking and literature seldom meet, and probably for good reason. There’s not much drama to be found in the facts and figures of the financial district. Or is there?Bank is the debut ... Read More »

May 29, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Shelf Monkey

By Corey Redekop

A decade ago, when Oprah launched her book club juggernaut, stuffy literati worldwide – especially authors of books not chosen – knee-jerkingly condemned the idea of one person dictating what the masses should read. Those ... Read More »

May 29, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Spent

By Joe Matt

In the annals of confessional Loser Lit, few capture the minute details of their own downfall with as much glee and obsessiveness as cartoonist Joe Matt. Matt, an American who lived in Toronto for years ... Read More »

May 29, 2007 | Filed under: Graphica

Mother of Lies

By Dave Duncan

With this novel, Dave Duncan, the prolific Victoria-based science fiction and fantasy writer, brings to a close the duology begun with 2006’s Children of Chaos. Mother of Lies is a solid sequel that carries all ... Read More »

May 29, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels