I came across Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson in a publisher’s catalogue, and requested it for some unknown reason (likely, on a whim). It sat on my shelf until it was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which prompted me to a) remember I even had a copy of it and b) make a…
The subtitle of Sharon Butala’s latest book This Strange Visible Air is: Essays on Aging and the Writing Life. Maybe it’s because I’m keenly aware that my forties are now in my sights, or maybe it’s because I recently discovered I may have trouble digesting gluten and the thought of a life stretched out before…
Lots of bloggers participate in Novellas for November, which is basically just an annual campaign to read more novellas this month. It’s a worthy cause because so many novellas are overlooked simply because they aren’t considered serious enough with their shorter page count (why do we consider books that are super long ‘serious’?) I’d like…
Hoo boy, this book is tough. It’s a difficult story, disturbing on many levels, but compulsively readable at the same time. There are, thankfully, trigger warnings at the beginning, (they call them ‘content notes’), so I’ll reiterate that before my readers go any further. Daniil & Vanya by Marie-Helene Larochelle, translated from the French by…
So I know Halloween is over, but I’m the type of person who likes to read spooky stories all year around, especially in the winter when I’m curled up by my fireplace. Agnes, Murderess by Sarah Leavitt landed on my doorstep unexpectedly, so the good folks at Freehand Books must have known how much I…
Now that I review and recommend books professionally I’m attempting to be a well-rounded reader, which in my mind means that I read a wide variety of books, even books that I suspect I’ll dislike. I’ve fulfilled this promise to myself by picking up a memoir written by a professional WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestler,…
For those of you who have read Ami McKay’s first book in this series of sorts, The Witches of New York, you will have undoubtedly devoured her latest, Half Spent Was the Night, which is billed as its sequel. Despite it being so short it packs in quite a bit, furthering the stories of our…
It’s strange timing that I read this book while pregnant, as The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman describes not one, not two, but three (!) different childbirth experiences. I raced through this book, and everytime I reached one of these scenes, I could feel my body tensing in anticipation (and let’s be honest,…
I won’t lie, the cover of this book threw me off so I didn’t even read its back blurb (yikes!) so THEN I had no idea the story of Dazzle Patterns by Alison Watt was set during the Halifax Explosion of 1917, which resulted in me relegating it to the back of my TBR shelf….
I read a total of 76 (ish) books this year, which was more than I read last year, so I’m happy with the overall outcome. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t count all the books I read in my annual end-of-year list, like parenting books, kids books, or the short story advent calendar I just…
