After last year’s gulp and gobble of new books, I have been tentative and restless. I touch my tongue to a book in my stacks, then move on, relishing the contrasting flavours but rarely sitting for a meal. Here, in Lorna Goodison’s Controlling the Silver (2005), I found this
Another voice-driven young woman’s story—Fatima Daas’s The Last One (2021)—held me rapt throughout. At first, I wondered if the repetitive variations on “My name is Fatima” that open each segment of the story would grate on me but, perhaps because the prose is arranged so that it’s almost-verse-like, it
This year I’ve been reading more non-fiction than usual. It’s not that I’ve been trying, it’s only that I’ve allowed my curiosity to access my holds queue. When I have questions after I’ve finished a novel, I’ve allowed myself to wander more than usual. It’s created an interesting rhythm
I’ve been to the islands in my summer reading this year: Norwegian, Atlantic Canadian, Jamaican, Greenlandian and Sri Lankan. Roy Jacobsen’s Ingrid trilogy landed in my stack thanks to a reading copy of White Shadow from Biblioasis, translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw. Partly because I liked the
Crooks, Drain, Freeman, Mukasonga, and Philyaw Short Stories in January, February and March Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to some favourite writers and also explored several new-to-me story writers.
