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Sula, by Toni Morrison
What struck me most about Sula is the idea that loneliness is our most fundamental state, and that friendship and love can only offer distraction for a while. Worse, these brief periods of joy only...
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The End of East, by Jen Sookfong Lee
This is my first foray into Asian-Canadian literature, and I found it utterly absorbing. The End of East is a quick, though not insubstantial read about 3 generations of Chinese-Canadians in...
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JPod, by Douglas Coupland
I have to say that if I could spend the day in any writer’s head, I’d probably choose Douglas Coupland’s. If this book is any indication (although I’ve also read his Miss Wyoming), it would be a riot....
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A History of Forgetting, by Caroline Adderson
“The first thing she learned working at Vitae was about history: that the present rests upon layers of the past, but is a stratum so unstable, so shot with fault lines, that now and then the then...
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Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay
This year’s Giller winner Late Nights on Air tells the story of a group of radio personalities in the seventies in the Northwest Territories. It is a character driven story, and the characters are...
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lullabies for little criminals, by Heather O'Neill
O’Neill’s first novel is narrated by Baby, a 12 year old girl whose name is perfectly selected – it denotes innocence but can’t escape connotations of strippers and prostitutes. And this is indeed the...
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Happenstance, by Carol Shields
I was attracted to this book first because it was by Carol Shields, whom I admire, and secondly because of its unique format. Happenstance actually has two separate stories, each with it’s own cover,...
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The Rules of Engagement, by Catherine Bush
The Globe and Mail review of The Rules of Engagement stated that “As any fine novel should, it raises more questions than it answers.” Appropriately so, as it deals with two of humanity’s most puzzling...
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The Underpainter, by Jane Urquhart
When I decided to undertake the Second Canadian Reading Challenge, Eh?, I knew that it wouldn’t be that difficult. After all, at least 1/3 of what I read is Canadian anyway. But I decided that if I...
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How to Read an Unwritten Language, by Philip Graham
I picked this book up at my used book hot spot, my local reuse centre, because it intrigued me. It is focuses on a boy named Michael whose mother has multiple personality disorder. As he learns to...
View ArticleBlindness by Jose Saramago
Jose Saramago’s Nobel Prize winning novel, Blindness, does little to camouflage man’s self-seeking and essentially evil nature. Instead, “man” is observed through the crosshairs of an increasingly...
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Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb
During the year and a half Camilla Gibb spent living in the Ethopian city of Harar, the intent was to work, not on her third novel, but on her Ph.D. in anthropology. In a Danforth Review interview,...
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Barney's Version, by Mordecai Richler
Winner of the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, The 1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Giller prize, I had some pretty high expectations for Barney’s Version – and I am happy to say they were met,...
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Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
My redmist book is Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, the acme of Bloomsburyish poppycock, a self-flattering appropriation of English literature and history, distilled from Woolf’s temporarily addled brain by...
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The Impostor, by Damon Galgut
The newest novel by Booker Prize Nominee Damon Galgut, The Impostor, follows Adam, a man who has lost his job and his sense of self in Johannesburg and consequently retreats to his brother’s shack in...
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Fruit, by Brian Francis
I think the world would be a lot better off if we all had truth-telling nipples. Sure, there’d probably be a national masking-tape shortage, but we’d get by with the help of those two sage advisers....
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Cereus Blooms at Night, by Shani Mootoo
More often that not, I pick the next book I’ll read on a whim, which generally works out pretty well. As I started Cereus Blooms at Night, I felt that I’d made the wrong decision, yet it’s a testament...
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Look for Me, by Edeet Ravel
“Still, I am lucky. I am surrounded by love. Even if I can’t touch it, or see it, I know it is there, waiting for me.” I’m starting this review with the last line of Look for Me, a line both hopeful...
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The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson
As I started reading this book, it was hard to set aside the fact that this was a $2 million dollar book ($1.25 million of that advance coming from Doubleday – the highest Canadian advance to date)....
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The Romantic, by Barbara Gowdy
The Romantic was a twice-recommended KIRBC book, so I was overjoyed to find a used copy, though once I started reading, Gowdy was quick to extinguish any joyous emotions. The story of Louise Kirk, a...
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