I didn’t fall in love with a book during this Canada Reads. Last year I fell in love with Nikolski (and, hey, it even won), and I’ve fallen for others throughout my long relationship with Canada Reads. It’s hard not to hope for that. But of course the odds are
If I was coming into these debates not having read these books, I think I’d be readily swayed by Lorne Cardinal’s defense of Carol Shields’ novel, Unless. (With Sara Quin weighing in on the other end of the table.) I’m not just saying that because Unless is one of my
Launching with an hour-long show is great. A half-hour launch leaves a scrambled sense of the panelists, and their passion for their chosen works is nothing but a blur before it’s time to relegate one of those to the sidelines. Did the montages for each book make the best use
Angie Abdou’s The Bone Cage NeWest Press, 2007 Chlorine and sweat: Angie Abdou’s debut novel is soaked. And if you can’t abide the smell of either, you might not want to cozy up to the tale of Sadie and Digger. These two are splashing their way to the top, elite
Jeff Lemire’s Essex County (Collected) Top Shelf Productions, 2010 Here’s what I scribbled in my notebook when I finished reading Tales From the Farm in 2008: The first in Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy feels in some ways like the antithesis to [Craig Thompson’s] Blankets – a very slim volume, with
