One of the things I love about small presses is their willingness to take on authors with big imaginations who come up with stories rarely found in mainstream publishing. These books are not likely going to make it to the big displays at the Chapters/Indigo store, but are more likely to be placed into your … Continue reading Galleon Books: Jerrod Edson and Jake Swan
Message in a Bottle is a book that combines some of my favourite things: the ocean, seabirds and other marine animals, biology, snow and ice, and Atlantic Canadian stories. Holly Hogan is now one of my heroes, literary and otherwise. (And she's married to one of my other literary heroes - Michael Crummey. The two … Continue reading Message in a Bottle by Holly Hogan
Two Halifax/Dartmouth based authors writing about Crohn's Disease, depression, trips to the medical clinic, and a trip across Canada. Gutsy: living my best life with Crohn's Disease & ulcerative colitis by Heather Fegan (Nimbus Publishing) Gutsy was a double-nominee at this year's Nova Scotia Book Awards. Until reading this book, I had no idea how … Continue reading Maritime Memoirs: Heather Fegan and Martin Bauman
The Atlantic Book Awards took place at the beginning of June, as did the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island Book Awards. The Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards are in progress. For me, the highlight of the Atlantic Book Awards is the Thomas Raddall Prize for Atlantic Fiction. Here are the five shortlisted … Continue reading Michelle Porter, William Ping, and the Atlantic Book Awards 2024
With the exception of Claudia Dey and Logan Steiner, all of these authors are either living in the Maritimes or are from the Maritimes. The settings range from Yarmouth, Barrington Passage, and Dartmouth to Ontario, Norway, and medieval England. The topics and characters include: a clandestine affair, a family scandal, a missing man, the daughter … Continue reading Catch-Up: Ian Colford, Jill MacLean, Bruce W. Bishop, Elaine McCluskey, Kate McLaughlin, Claudia Dey, Odette Barr, Colleen Landry, Beth Weatherbee, and Logan Steiner
Literary Wives is an on-line book group that examines the meaning and role of wife in different books. Four times a year, we post and discuss a book with this question in mind: What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? Don’t forget to check out the other members … Continue reading #LiteraryWives: Recipe for a Perfect Wife
Kilmeny of the Orchard is a novel that arose from the short story "Una of the Garden," which was published in 1908. In Magic Island, Elizabeth Waterston writes about the changes that were made by LMM as she re-worked the story. For example, the setting change from "garden" to "orchard" suggests "a development in Montgomery's … Continue reading #ReadingKilmeny: “She was, after all, nothing but a child…”
Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice Moon of the Turning Leaves is the sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow and will be one of my best books of the year. Crusted Snow left us with the small northern Anishinaabe community leaving their houses and heading into the woods to return to a … Continue reading From the Library: dystopian future, spiritual horror, and irrational fears
Okay, folks. I am really behind on my audiobook write-ups, so I'm taking this opportunity to catch up. The following constitute almost a whole year's worth of listening. Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud A collection of essays about growing up in Canada after immigrating from Sudan at the age of 12 and exploring what … Continue reading What I’ve Been Listening To: a year of learning new things
Dear Haider is a debut novel by Lili Zeng. It is told in the first person by Elizabeth or “Liz” as she prefers to be called, a 20-year-old Chinese-Canadian woman living in Montreal who is spending her summer doing a paid internship in Germany. An only child, and a musical prodigy, she was never quite … Continue reading Dear Haider by Lili Zeng (Baraka Books)
Consumed by Ink 