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With the Canada Reads competition wrapping up a few weeks ago, I decided it was the perfect time to read Unflinching which is Jody Mitic‘s story of becoming a soldier and his subsequent injury (one of the judges from Canada Reads 2017). I’m sorry to say I didn’t really like this book, and I feel…
This is a difficult book to classify because it has successfully taken elements from many genres; fantasy, historical fiction, even horror can be found in The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. The story takes place in medieval Russia, mostly in a small village steeped in wilderness. Here, winter lasts the majority of the year,…
So you can always tell when I’ve been travelling, because the pictures of my books don’t feature Pearl or Smokey. I went on a lovely road trip to the UK a few weeks ago with my husband, and while away, I read a few books about travelling, just to help me get in the exploring…
I’ve always been a fan of short story collections, especially because they are the ‘hidden gems’ of the literary world; not many them are published because they don’t typically sell very well. But it is my expert humble opinion that readers of all kinds should read short stories, so I’m always happy to profile them…
When we look at the covers of books, we sometimes see what we want to, and conveniently overlook the things we don’t. Unfortunately this happens to me often because I do things quickly, sometimes too quickly, so I frequently miss things. My most recent example: not noticing that The Tourist by Robert Dickinson is a…
I loved Maria Semple’s last book Where’d You Go Bernadette, so I was excited to pick up her follow-up novel, Today Will Be Different. It also takes place in Seattle (Semple’s hometown), and once again the protagonist Eleanor Flood is a wacky, stressed-out mom who regales the reader with hilarious insights into the world around her….
Mental illness: many people suffer from it, and everyone fears it. It seems like only lately have we begun getting better at talking about it, although that in itself has been a slow progression. But when we think of how people suffering from mental illnesses were treated even 50 years ago, it’s uplifting to reflect…
I am most definitely not a dog person. I don’t have anything against them, in fact I love petting dogs when I see them on a walk, playing with my friends’ dogs, and giving a nice golden retriever a good belly rub when the opportunity presents itself. But you see, it’s impossible for me to…
I was really excited by the premise of this book when Edge Publishing sent it to me. Essentially, nEvermore! (yes, that is the correct spelling) is a collection of stories inspired by Edgar Allan Poe; many are re-imaginings for his published works while others are simply inspired by his writing. How cool is that? I’ve never…
Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers has a lot going for it, the most important being how funny it is. There were so many laugh-out-loud moments in it that I found myself reading passages aloud to my husband-now that’s a sign of a good book! The majority of the humour comes from the inner…
Can you guess what this book is about based on its title alone? It’s probably the most straightforward (and hilarious) title I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m guessing it’s caught your eye the same it way it did mine a few months ago. When I saw this book in a publishers catalogue, I…
As my adventures in the UK continue, I’m finding it difficult to find time to blog. However, I knew that all my book friends out there would find one of my recent trips interesting, so I wanted to get this down before I forgot about it. Last week, we visited Stratford-upon-Avon, which is the birthplace…
