A dozen stories, nearly all about women and girls who are deaf, Louise Stern being the fourth generation of her own family to be born deaf. See all those dots on the cover? Sure, more than a dozen, so imagine them as characters, not stories. Then imagine that each of the
When I was working in a bookshop, this is the sort of book we would have put on the counter near the cash register. House of Anansi, 2012 It is a certain sort of customer who deliberately includes this section of a bookshop in their browsing rather than
The images pulled from the lives of Afghan girls and women in Lana Šlezić's Forsaken are immediately and powerfully affecting. House of Anansi, 2007 The cover shot alone hints at the depth of contrast and complexity that the work contains. Consider the fragility (the torn lace) and the endurance (the
Indie presses folding. Mega-presses consolidating. Indie shops closing. Mega-stores dictating terms to publishers. It sounds grim if you're a reader who loves to browse in bookshops and wants a variety of good reading. But what to do? I am a single reader. Here's what I did: I made lists. Because that's what
Friendships between schoolgirls like Jessie and MaryBeth -- for that is how their names are properly spelled, although they like to pretend to be Jesse and Meribeth -- are complicated. It's not the first time Alice Munro has grappled with the subject. The intricacies of relationships between schoolchildren also feature
