After a short hiatus from my booktube reviews, I’m back with a new one: The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman. As I mention in the recording, this is the July pick for my book club (register for the discussion here if you’re interested and live in Calgary!), and I really enjoyed it. Didn’t think I…
Why is it that the lives of the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have nots’ always seem to intrigue us? Reality television tends to focus on the rich and famous, creating a fake example of ‘life’ when it is really just an over-scripted and curated view of what the producers want us to believe. As an extension…
I’ve had this book on my shelf for awhile now, it was a gift from someone who knew I loved the show. I was saving it for a ‘special occasion’, meaning, when I knew I would need my spirits lifted, and reading something comforting like this would instantly make me feel better. So, I packed…
Ah yes, the good ol’ unreliable female narrator. You can’t wade into a thriller section of a bookstore these days without finding at least 50% of the books include this oft-used device. This time, our protagonist Jane Norton isn’t reliable because she might be crazy (although that’s hinted at more than once), but she’s an…
I recorded my first radio column since giving birth this week, so it sounds like I have a bit of ‘baby brain’ when certain titles and words escape me, but luckily the very seasoned radio host fills in the blanks (thank you Terri!). Hopefully the more sleep I get, the better my radio columns will…
I am a very very lucky book blogger in the fact that my bookshelves fill with free review copies from publishers. I don’t have the need to go out and buy/borrow any books, because I get a steady stream sent to me in exchange for an honest review. That being said, any bookworm worth their…
God this was a funny book. The Figgs by Ali Bryan is absolutely hilarious, and I knew it would be, based on how much I enjoyed her first novel Roost, which also mines the hilarity of family, child-rearing, and the domestic sphere in general. The Figgs centers on a family who finds themselves in increasing turmoil….
Liminal by Jordan Tannahill is a book that pushes boundaries. It doesn’t really have a plot, so it’s pushing the boundaries of what we would typically think of as a novel (although many people see this as more of a memoir, it’s a work of fiction, so we must assume that there are embellishments at…
As I write and post this, I am 39 weeks pregnant with a baby boy: a younger brother to my 3-year-old daughter. I’m well past my ‘nesting’ phase of cooking frozen meals and making sure our diaper stash is stocked- my feet are swollen to hell, so the best thing for me to do at…
Word by Word by Kory Stamper is a non-fiction book about dictionaries. Wait! Before you close out of this blog post, I promise you reading my review will be worth it, because this my friends, is a great book full of entertaining writing. Yes, a book with the subtitle of “The Secret Life of Dictionaries” may…
This book could have easily become a cliche; it centers on the extramarital affair that Maggie has with her penpal-turned-friend-turned-lover James. But there are a few things that keep Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro from spiralling into an overdone narrative. Firstly, Maggie is quite religious, which of course raises a few eyebrows right off the…
It feels like I’ve been reading a lot of ‘dark’ books lately, non-fiction mostly, so I searched for a ‘guilty pleasure’ read to lift the guilt I had been weighed under by reading such devastating memoirs. Strange to some, I chose a thriller, a pretty violent one at that to entertain me after my spate…
