Tag: Canadian
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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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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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Best Bookish Gifts in Toronto
Shopping for the perfect gift for a reader? Want something unique and truly Canadian? I know I do! I love looking through holiday look books but I’ve always thought that there isn’t enough of a spotlight on Canadian gifts. Not to mention the added shipping fees and waiting of ordering in from the U.S. or…
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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.”…
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The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
I only wrote this review a few months ago, but there has been an exciting new development in the real world which Lawrence Hill drew inspiration from. The Nova Scotia government has released the real Book of Negroes as an open data set for researchers or anyone to use really. You can see a digitized…
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FOLD + Lawrence Hill Live!
Two weekends ago I had the opportunity to hear Lawrence Hill in conversation with Farzana Doctor as part of FOLD, the Festival of Literary Diversity. I found out about FOLD late so I was only able to drop by on Sunday afternoon, but I was very excited to check out a festival dedicated to diversity…
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Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
A tale of innocence and adolescence will crack your heart right open. Lullabies for Little Criminals is the coming-of-age story of Baby, who lives mostly on the streets of Montreal with her father Jules, a drug addict. O’Neill’s bildungsroman looks at the myriad of issues surrounding street kid culture. Readers are forced to question why…
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Truth & Bright Water by Thomas King
I picked up my copy of Truth & Bright Water at the 2015 Hagey Lecture featuring Thomas King. His lecture entitled “Love in the Time of Cholera: Canadian Edition” was moving, topical, and, of course, exceedingly funny. Meeting authors I adore is always a panic-filled moment for me. I fear that meeting my hero may reveal a…
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And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyne Saucier
I’ve been putting off writing this blog. Mostly because a) I once again failed to read all of the Canada Reads books in time for Canada Reads and b) I did not like this book. Both of which are a pretty big deal for me since I hate not finishing things and usually like most…
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Station Eleven by Emily St. John
So, I’ve taken a bit of a break from both my #ReadHarder challenge and Canada Reads 2015 if you hadn’t noticed. I got the flu a little while ago and while I’ve been playing catch up in my life I decided to treat myself by falling headlong into the haunting Station Eleven by Emily St.…
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Intolerable A Memoir of Extremes by Kamal Al-Solaylee
When I began reading Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes at the beginning of the week I did not expect to be pulled into a mesmerizing story of life in the Middle East for a young gay man. I also did not expect to learn about an Arabic world that was largely secular. Al-Solaylee paints a…