Tag: canlit
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A Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto
I first discovered Chorus of Mushrooms in a used bookstore. It’s red and black cover caught my eye and the title including mushrooms (in these fungi obsessed times) was enough for me to pick it up and take it home. Little did I know at that time this wonderful piece of fiction by Hiromi Goto…
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Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
A perfect blend of memoir, non-fiction, epistolary, and poetry, Two Trees Make a Forest was not a read I wanted to rush. In it, Jessica J. Lee recounts some of her family histories as she hikes through Taiwan, confronting secrets about her Mom, Gong, and Po she’s learned from translations of her Gong’s own memoirs.…
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How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife is a masterful collection of short stories that bite. The book is a meditation on the feelings of displacement, discomfort, and alienation that often comes with the immigrant experience, particularly the refugee experience, in Canada. Most stories end on a melancholic note, but it isn’t all doom and gloom.…
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Beyond Asian Heritage Month: A Reading List
Since 2002, the month of May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. Being the largest, most populous continent in the world, there are so many works from so many authors to read! The thousands of years of history within each country and between many of them has produced a complex and rich background that it…
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Pride Reading List
Pride month is over but that doesn’t mean that celebrations have to stop! Celebrate a second Pride month (or all year around if you like) with these LGBT2Q+ books. In this case, these are books that either are written by LGBT2Q+ authors and/or feature LGBT2Q+ characters, as recommended by members of the LGBT2Q+ community in…
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Lattes with Ladies: Jessica Needham!
In this edition of Lattes with Ladies we are celebrating Pride with the effervescent Jessica Needham! Jess shares her thoughts on queer books versus queering books and her fascinating research into queer media studies.
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Lattes with Ladies: Justine Abigail Yu!
The triumphant return of Lattes with Ladies begins with the founder of Living Hyphen and magnificent marketing maven, Justine Abigail Yu! I learned about Living Hyphen shortly after they launched and was blown away with the creativity of emerging hyphenate-Canadian writers. Issue 2: Across Generations is in the works and you could be one of…
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The Boat People by Sharon Bala
Sharon Bala’s The Boat People is controversial, to say the least. Featured in the 2018 Canada Reads competition only to be ousted on day one, it takes an honest attempt to steer the course of Canadian conversation by directly addressing one of our hot-button issues of the moment. In this case, the refugee crisis. Starting in 2009,…
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A Year of Missed Reviews
A lot has happened in 2017, I took a short break from blogging which turned into a long break so I could focus on my job and non-profit activities. I don’t regret my choice really but every now and again I’ll be riding the subway or walking down the street and I would think of…
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The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King was recommended to me by the same friend (and fan of King) who suggested I read Truth and Bright Water. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I loved both of them! The Back of the Turtle follows a few different characters, each chapter alternating…
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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,…