Doris McCarthy’s Ninety Years Wise Second Story Press, 2004 This is another book that I discovered thanks to Shelagh Rogers’ The Next Chapter. You know how sometimes you hear a name so many times and you keep meaning to investigate and then, suddenly, something happens and it shifts from a
Gordon j.h. Leeanders’ To Be Continued ECW Press, 2005 Read: Sitting at freshly-assembled dining-room table. Now we can seat 8 for a meal. Or one reader and one story collection. (It was a two-course read for me.) Warning: Even if you usually spread short story collections over time, you’ll be
Jane Urquhart’s The Whirlpool (1986) McClelland & Stewart, 1997 In an early edition of Jane Urquhart’s debut novel, she credits a 1915 novel for having inspired her story: Julia E. Cruikshank’s Whirlpool Heights: The Dream-House on the Niagara River. It’s difficult to find a copy of Whirlpool Heights but, because
A quick glance at my bookshelves and you would think that Jane Urquhart is one of my favourite authors. I have all of her novels save one -- a couple of hardcovers purchased new -- but I have a habit of leaving them unfinished. Nonetheless, the themes she pursues in
John Steffler’s The Afterlife of George Cartwright McClelland & Stewart, 1992 When John Steffler’s novel opens, Nottinghamshire is shimmering with the energy of May and George Cartwright describes the familiar route he’s taking on his horse. Doesn't seem that remarkable. Yet. But. It's the “same route he’s taken every day
