In which I discuss some of the skinny volumes which have kept me company while on the move, while heavier volumes (like Connie Willis' Crosstalk and Steven King's 11/22/1963) stayed home. Warsan Shire's chapbook is my skinniest book of the year. I finished reading it on a single commute, but
Nothing really happens. Here, the "main event is simply a view of the water". So Ruby's story should not be a page-turner. But, in fact, The Town that Drowned is a coming-of-age story with a curious momentum. No single element is responsible: character and voice, setting and structure, all work
Steven Price began as a poet, so the hype surrounding his new novel, By Gaslight, must have been disconcerting. But that's appropriate, because it is intended to be a disconcerting story. McClelland & Stewart - PRH, 2016 The majority of readers probably won't be interested in either the rumours surrounding
Poems for a Girlhood, it's subtitled. But it's actually for girlhoods. For the author's. And Reena Virk's. At least, for what of Reena Virk's girlhood is known and what can be imagined. She was murdered on November 14, 1997 when she was fourteen years old. At least eight teenagers participated in her
"The past presses so hard on the present, the present is badly bruised, blood brims under the skin." These lines from Brenda Shaughnessy's poem “Nachträglichkeit”* fit beautifully with Darren Greer's new novel, Advocate: Not only because much of Advocate is preoccupied with memory, with what the characters carry with them
