Unforgettable design, no? Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers House of Anansi, 2011 So I'm chatting about this book, about the scene with the 'dentist', and I announce that I agree that it's unfair that he doesn't get paid for his 'services', but dismiss it quickly by saying that
Jane Urquhart's Sanctuary Line McClelland & Stewart, 2010 Liz Crane is an entomologist; she studies insects. Specifically butterflies – monarchs. But, more generally, she takes time to examine what others frequently overlook. As a narrator, therefore, her perspective will not be to every reader’s taste. She has also suffered a
George Elliott Clarke’s Whylah Falls (1990) Raincoast Books - Polestar, 2000 George Elliott Clarke’s Whylah Falls tells the story of a group of Afro-Canadians on the south shore of Nova Scotia. Readers can gather that from a quick glance at the book’s front and back covers. But what readers won’t
Thomas Wharton's Icefields (1995) Readers will recognize quickly whether there is a match to be made between them and Thomas Wharton's first novel. Ten pages should do it. First, there is the epigraph, from Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter: "As if everything in the world is the history of ice."
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
