Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush

In the final days of 1920, after a series of bloody Arab uprisings against the British occupiers of Mesopotamia (soon to be renamed Iraq), a frustrated Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, ... Read More »

April 5, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, History

Yesno

By Dennis Lee

UN, Dennis Lee’s previous collection of poetry for adults, represented a significant stylistic departure not only for Lee but for English Canadian poetry in general. Unlike the long, often prosy lines of Civil Elegies, a ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Poetry

The Breakdown So Far

By M.A.C. Farrant

This collection of (very) short stories and literary snapshots is billed as “an unsparing critique” of North American mall culture. It is unsparing. It’s also sometimes witty and clever. Unfortunately, it’s often so busy sneering ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Short

The Years of Fire: Charles the Bold, Volume 2

By Yves Beauchemin

For better or worse, the novels of Montreal writer Yves Beauchemin don’t tax his readers’ intellects unduly. The first volume of his Charles the Bold trilogy was so concerned with his hero’s childhood that it ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Out of Character

By Vanessa Craft

Style and music journalist Vanessa Craft cuts her creative teeth with a debut novel about British gentlemen’s clubs. She’s definitely on to something with heroine Emma Gordon, a listless young writer for a British tabloid ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Halifax Connection

By Marie Jakober

Erryn Shaw is an English aristocrat who has fled to Halifax to avoid a dark past. Sylvie Bowen is a working-class girl who has escaped the deadly environment of Lancashire’s cotton mills. Inevitably, they meet, ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Because a Fire Was in My Head

By Lynn Stegner

Kate Riley, the protagonist of Santa Fe, New Mexico author Lynn Stegner’s latest novel, has had a rough go of it. As she faces exploratory brain surgery for what may or may not be a ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Brother Dumb

By Sky Gilbert

Brother Dumb is a long fictional monologue by a famous American writer, a Second World War veteran who becomes a recluse after publishing a huge bestseller in 1951. Living in the woods of New Hampshire, ... Read More »

April 4, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Mysterious Adventures of Pauline Bovary

By Edeet Ravel

The New York Times’s recent declaration that trends are the new trend left me worried. How can I hold up my head as a Q&Q columnist if I don’t start recognizing some trends? Approaching despair, ... Read More »

April 2, 2007 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction