May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
By the sound of it, Winter in Hollywood should be a warm, glamorous affair packed with decorated palm trees, brushes with celebrities, and yoga classes full of people grimly working out their New Year’s resolutions. ... Read More »
People have a tendency to romanticize places like Rome. We think of ancient ruins, glamorous Italians with dazzling smiles and sexy accents, fabulous cafés, and zippy red sports cars. But once you’ve lived there, breathing ... Read More »
May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short
This engaging debut collection of nine short stories by Toronto author Krista Bridge contains an assortment of compelling, intriguing, likable, moody, and introspective heroines. Stories in The Virgin Spy focus on domestic life and the ... Read More »
May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short
José Latour’s new novel delivers everything one could ask for in a mystery: suspense, strong characters, an intriguing plot with many twists, violence that serves the story and ramps up the tension, and a setting ... Read More »
May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
Anar Ali’s first book is made up of a series of seven diverse and compelling stories centred on the Ismaili community, a Muslim sect with origins in India but with a wide diaspora that includes ... Read More »
May 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short
It’s bad enough that hockey monopolizes both television and the national consciousness for the bulk of each year — now it’s invading the poetry shelves as well? What is the world coming to? I would ... Read More »
May 17, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Poetry
A collection of newspaper columns is supposed to act as a gap-filler for a publisher and a quick ego-stroke for its author. A column, after all, is the reactionary, unreflective bastard child of the essay, ... Read More »
March 30, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Politics & Current Affairs
Ken Babstock’s third collection might disappoint those hoping for another clutch of tough-luck chronicles along the lines of Mean and its follow-up, Days into Flatspin. While those first two books seemed rooted in the same ... Read More »
March 27, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Poetry
Kenneth J. Harvey writes in short, staccato sentences. Every word a jab. A knife. A fist. Verbal cuts. Makes Hemingway seem like a blabbermouth. The Newfoundland author’s latest novel follows 2003’s The Town That Forgot ... Read More »
March 20, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
People who are contented and stable don’t tend to feel the need for poetry. It’s at the hinge stages of our lives – the language acquisiton heyday of early childhood, the minefield of adolescence, and ... Read More »
March 16, 2006 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Picture Books