She tells you straight-up: "The decision when to begin a family story is arbitrary." HarperPerennial, 2015 (US edition) And she lays out the doubts and uncertainties: "Who am I to claim the official version?" And, so, Alison Pick is our seemingly uncertain and unsanctioned guide. But, she also
Despite its sedate and unassuming cover, Pauline Holdstock's The Hunter and the Wild Girl begins in a rush. Goose Lane, 2015 "With a shriek of splintering boards, the girl breaks into daylight and stands blinded, panting, sucking air as if it were a great hot soup, her chest
My stacks for this month are works-in-progress. Because even though we are two weeks into October now, my inner calendar is still hovering near the beginning of September. So, part of me still thinks that I will have more time to read more of the books that I'd dreamed of
"I've always conceived of language as music," says Tomson Highway: musician, playwright, novelist. "I play Chopin still, but in Cree," he continues. Then, more than a decade later, it is as though he continues this conversation, in A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance. This slim volume is subtitled on "Imagining Multilingualism", which
If the idea of experimental or innovative short stories makes you squirm, even though you are simultaneously bored with more traditional structure, Not Anyone’s Anything belongs on your bookshelf. Ian Williams puts relationships at the core of his work and this fiction collection exhibits this tendency as well. I also
