September 13, 2023 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews
If such a thing as a typical amnesia memoir exists, it’s fair to say that Tara Sidhoo Fraser’s debut, When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery, and Transformation, is not it, though “amnesia ... Read More »
Reuniting With Strangers is a novel about motion. After years of waiting – either in Canada or the Philippines – every character in Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio’s debut work of fiction finds themselves reuniting with a family ... Read More »
September 13, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Into the Bright Open, by Métis author Cherie Dimaline, reimagines The Secret Garden through an anti-colonial lens. It is the eighth book in the Remixed Classics series, in which authors from under-represented backgrounds take literary ... Read More »
September 13, 2023 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
Hans Christian Andersen Lives Next Door is a funny and thought-provoking middle-grade novel about the power of stories – especially the ones we tell ourselves. Real life isn’t a fairy tale for Andie Gladman. The ... Read More »
September 11, 2023 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
When Laura Keys, the contemporary protagonist of Elizabeth Ruth’s Semi-Detached, first enters the house at Two Condor Avenue on an icy winter day in Toronto in 2013, she feels as if she has “stepped into ... Read More »
September 6, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
“So what happens when you don’t need a human being to write anything anymore? When you can just turn to your magic smartbox and say, ‘Write me a novel about ornithologists and spies?’” This question, ... Read More »
September 6, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
There are beloved folk tales that are passed down through generations. Something in the story makes them worth retelling over and over again. The Shade Tree, written and illustrated by Suzy Lee, and translated by ... Read More »
September 6, 2023 | Filed under: Kids’ Books, Picture Books
One Summer in Vancouver is a coming out story set against the backdrop of Vancouver’s Gay Games, which were held in 1990. At 17, Tom is struggling to come out – both to himself and ... Read More »
September 4, 2023 | Filed under: Children and YA Fiction, Kids’ Books
In 1997, Padma Viswanathan – more than decade away from the publication of her lauded debut novel, The Toss of a Lemon – secluded herself in a decommissioned tugboat docked in a Vancouver Island marina. ... Read More »
August 30, 2023 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews
Historical fiction often dwells in the gap between what happened and what was recorded. The best examples also explore the historical conditions for why that gap exists. Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Learned by Heart, does ... Read More »
August 30, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews