Category: review
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No Place Strange by Diana Fitzgerald Bryden
I seem to have made it a habit of picking books that are difficult to write about even though I know that I will spend more time going back and forth about what I can and can’t say than actually sitting down and trying to write a review. First, it was student suicide, now it…
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Monoceros by Suzette Mayr
Lately, I’ve been challenging myself to read more outside of my comfort zone. When I spotted Monoceros‘ beautiful cover on the discount shelf at TYPE Books, I thought why not give it a shot? I read the summary on the back and it seemed alright. I was not disappointed! Inside was a beautiful and tragic story. Unfortunately,…
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No-No Boy by John Okada
I picked up John Okada’s No-No Boy in the Alcatraz Island gift shop when I was visiting San Francisco. It was part of a display about the time period that Alcatraz prison existed in, and when I found out that Okada’s novel is considered the first Asian-American novel I knew it was going to be my choice…
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Tales from The Moth
The Moth is releasing its second book, All These Wonders on March 21st! What better time to review their first collection? From the outset, I wasn’t sure how I was going to write about The Moth book, or even if I should. As a collection of stories from the incredibly popular podcast and touring show, which features…
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Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
The funny thing with reading a lot and only writing in my odd spare moment on weekends means that I often have to remind myself what I read and if I had written a blog about it yet. I was surprised this morning when I realized that I hadn’t actually written my review of Hag-Seed…
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The Pain Tree by Olive Senior
I picked up The Pain Tree at the Word on the Street festival in Toronto this past fall. It was recommended to me at the Cormorant Books tent, and always happy to pick up more Canlit and Caribbean lit, I couldn’t say no! Olive Senior is a prolific writer, having published many volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and…
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The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
I got Ami McKay’s latest book, The Witches of New York, in a swag bag from a special sale at Joe Fresh on Queen St. This is a rare book for this blog – one that I didn’t choose for myself nor was it recommended to me by a close friend. By coincidence, it also turned…
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There’s just something about Bathsheba – a feminist icon for today
I first read Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd about two years ago and loved it, so when I saw the title appear on Netflix I knew I would have to write about it! Bathsheba, Hardy’s protagonist has been one of my favourite feminist icons in literature, and with the Women’s March on Washington just last…
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a critically acclaimed new novel from Madeleine Thien. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award as well as shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal, it is effectively the book of 2016. I can’t believe I actually read it before…
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A Brief History of Seven Killings by James Marlon
Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings opens with a Jamaican proverb: “If it no go so, it go near so.” As a fictional account of very real events, it’s hard to think of a more fitting phrase. I’d been meaning to read A Brief History for many months. A year, in fact, as a…
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Uncovering the mystery of The Monkey’s Paw
I set out on a Sunday when the TTC closed the Bloor line (of course) to visit The Monkey’s Paw at its new west-end location. Infamous for being a shop of curios and The Biblio-Mat machine,which spits out odd and old books for just a toonie, I’ve always been curious about it! Like a…
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Rich and Poor by Jacob Wren
I picked up Rich and Poor at the Book Thug tent at Word on the Street. Struck at first by its beautiful cover, the synopsis really hooked me with its brutal honesty: “Rich and Poor is a novel of a man who washes dishes for a living and decides to kill a billionaire as a political act.”…