Toronto: An Illustrated History of Its First 12,000 Years Ed. Ronald F. Williamson James Lorimer & Company (2008) Yes, that's right: 12,000 years. So the city that you recognize from tramping the pavement these days doesn't even get going until 2/3 of the way into the book. Which makes this
Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestry Suzette Mayr's Monoceros Coach House Books, 2011 Nowadays, it's been Disney-fied, but once-upon-a-time the unicorn wasn't about pink glitter and rainbows, but about raw passions, about what cannot be tamed. In one of Da Vinci's notebooks is this note: "The unicorn, through its
I spent a ridiculous amount of time touching this cover (and wishing the hole in the centre was actually cut) Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues Thomas Allen Publishers, 2011 In the opening pages of Esi Edugyan’s second novel, readers meet Heiro, Chip, Delilah and Sid, and are immersed in
You might remember that I've been sampling books from Indie presses that have been shortlisted for this year's ReLit Awards. Not just novels, but short stories, even poetry (which is adventurous for me). For a month of Sundays (at least), I'm Buried in ReLit Print. Last weekend's samples? (You can check them out
Oh, they're wonderful. Library and college booksales. NCL lovelies (Sinclair Ross' The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories; Robertson Davies' Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack; Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel...an old addiction) John Wyndhams (Day of the Triffids* and The Chrysalids: why don't I already have these? Maybe because that BBC mini-series* in
