Boyles, Chen, Clerson, Eunyoung, Li, Ruffin, and So Short Stories in July, August, and September Whether in a dedicated collection or an anthology, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to a favourite writer and also explored seven new-to-me story writers.
For my birthday this year, Mr BIP arranged for me to have a cake with a sentence from an Alice Munro story iced onto it: “The world would be grand, if it weren’t for the people.” It’s an interesting quotation in a year when the pandemic has made everyone
Earlier this year, my Langston Hughes (1902-1967) reading (Part One, Part Two) was focussed more on his own writing. From his short stories to the first volume of his autobiography. But along the way, I’ve enjoyed a number of other books by and about him. “I should get Langston
After just a few pages, I knew I was going to love Mateo Ashkaripour’s Black Buck (2021): smart, funny, relevant, incisive. A few chapters in, Buck says: “I should’ve known from the Middle Passage to never trust a white man who says ‘Take a seat.’ It could be your
Recently I found an old New Canadian Library copy of Mordecai Richler’s second novel, Son of a Smaller Hero, originally published in 1955 (this copy a reprint from 1969), in a Little Free Library. When I find one of these tightly bound pocketbooks with their abstract, blotchy-arted covers second-hand,
