My Canadian readers won’t be at all surprised to see I’m reviewing Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill because it won the richest literary prize in Canada back in November: the Giller Prize. I’ll be honest though, I had no intention of reading it until my book club chose it. I’m glad I did because first of…
It doesn’t take much to please me these days, as you’ll hear on my latest radio segment with the CBC Homestretch. I admit to wanting to take a vacation on my couch, but don’t we all? An uninterrupted stretch of reading time is all I need for my ‘paradise’, although I realize some people may…
This is the perfect book to read in the dead of a Canadian winter. Fly Me by Daniel Riley is a novel that’s set mostly in the beach community of Sela del Mar, California in the year 1972. Think bell bottoms, big sunglasses, surf culture and young kids unconcerned about skin cancer. Sounds quite heavenly,…
I think Will Ferguson is hilarious, in person and in writing. Full disclosure; he’s a Calgarian, so I get to see him around quite a bit, which is why I know he’s funny on and off and page. We’re not buds or anything, but I would comfortably call us literary acquaintances here in the city,…
I adored this book. I found it difficult to read, and when I finished each chapter I had to put it down and sigh out my emotions, but I already know this will be one of the best books I read this year, if not THE best. And yes, I’m aware this year just started. The…
Everyone seemed very disappointed by the fact that my last video book review didn’t have a cat in it, so I forced Pearl into this one: you’re welcome! Unfortunately I wasn’t a huge fan of the novel I review in this video, although I can see why this book would appeal to lots of other…
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 felt like a bit of a rebel picking up this book back in December because I got it from the library, and no one had asked me to read or review it for them, I was simply reading it for (gasp!) pleasure. By Gaslight by Steven Price is one of those books that I…
It’s hard to imagine a woman named “Norma” as exotic (sorry to all the Normas out there, but you know it’s true), but the latest release from famed Helsinki-based writer Sofi Oksanen features just that: a “Norma” with a fantastic secret. Oksanen’s Norma has hair that grows at an incredible rate, she has to cut…
I loved this book. Brother by David Chariandy is a must-read, and I completely understand why it’s making all the prize lists this Fall. It recounts the childhood and early adulthood of a sensitive Michael, and his older brother Francis. They live in a small apartment in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough with their extremely…
In the past few years I’ve read a handful of books that could be labelled as ‘manly man literary books’. This is of course my highly scientific name for them, which I’m sure will catch on any minute now. What makes these books unique is the writing style which is typically very sparse and straightforward…
What do you think of when someone tells you a book is ‘ripe for book club discussion’? Does that kind of description make you roll your eyes, or encourage you to dive right in? I personally hate the insinuation that certain books are ‘book club’ books, because it assumes that all book clubs are the…
