About a year ago I reviewed a work of fiction called The Subtweet by multi-disciplinary artist Vivek Shraya, and along with many other critics I really enjoyed it, so I was excited when another one of her books People Change landed on my doorstep a few months ago. Unlike Subtweet, this is a short work…
Fishing and fatherhood: two subjects I cannot relate to! But as I continue my search for the perfect book for Father’s Day, I can safely say that Reading the Water; Fly Fishing, Fatherhood, and Finding Strength in Nature by Mark Hume is the ideal gift for any papa in your life, even those who don’t…
A crossword puzzle, a packing list, a script for a play, a journal of writing prompts, real estate listings, a dictionary, a legal contract, a grimoire, and a tree atlas – all of these writing forms and more are included in the book Persephone’s Children, a Life in Fragments by Rowan McCandless. The best way…
When I realized my reading last year was #sowhite, especially considering I’m reading all books published within the last few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to read with diversity in mind, and it has been a rewarding experience. Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll is a memoir about growing up half black,…
Picture yourself in a dark basement club in downtown Montreal, small votive candles burning away on each little table. Across from you is a woman with a raspy voice smoking a cigarette, telling you her life story in between sets on stage. She is surprisingly forthcoming considering you’ve never met, but she seems have this…
Poetry isn’t something I read often; every once in awhile I’ll pick it up, but I really don’t look forward to it, and there are way too many novels on my shelf to ignore. But you may find it surprising to hear that my second favourite author (David Sedaris is my first) is the Canadian…
The subtitle of Ethan Lou’s book Once a Bitcoin Miner is: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West, which is both a figurative and literal reference to what is discussed in this entertaining work of journalism. I’ll admit to being immediately put off by the topic – I could care less about Bitcoin, but…
A morbid curiosity first drew me to this book, but The Shaytan Bride by Sumaiya Matin also stood out to me as a memoir that every feminsit should read. There are also elements of the supernatural, as the Shaytan is a spirit from Islam that supposedly possesses women, forcing them into bizarre behaviors and lovesick…
I’m getting to that point in my bookworm years when I completely forget if I’ve read a particular author before. I was sure that Care Of by Ivan Coyote was my first book of theirs (they go by the plural pronoun fyi) but according to this very old blog post, I’ve read and loved Coyote’s…
Bookworms are especially perceptive. I may be biased of course, but for those who read as much as I do, I think we all share the ability to acknowledge the thousands of perspectives we can find in the pages of books. Unintentionally, I read two books, one after the other, that pains a picture of…
In the past few months I’ve reviewed a few works of climate fiction, but apparently they didn’t cause me enough anxiety so I kicked it up a notch with some non-fiction about our impending climate disaster instead. On Time and Water by Andri Snaer Magnason, translated from the Icelandic to English by Lytton Smith, focuses…
If you had the chance to secretly sit in on someone’s private therapy session, would you? Does hearing about the drama and disappointments of someone else’s life make you feel better about yours? I would personally answer ‘yes!’ to both those questions, but I may be in the minority. Group, How One Therapist and a…
