When you've looked up a book title, have you ever been tempted by the other books you've found with the same title as the book for which you were searching? In adding Lori McNulty's debut short story collection to my online TBR list, I discovered several other books with the same
In the wake of my IFOA reading list and the literary prizelists of the season, my November reading felt relatively whimsical. Without duedates attached to the majority of my reading, it was a pleasure to slip into volumes which had sat untouched in recent weeks. Each of these three volumes covers,
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
At the "Modern Families" roundtable at this year's IFOA, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan explained that it only felt natural to build her characters with the seemingly endless details that comprise their lives, their selves. Identity is clearly at the heart of her much-lauded debut, Harmless Like You, and a good part of
What Jane Ozkowski captures beautifully in Watching Traffic is the very sensation embodied in the debut novel's title: Emily is overwhelmed by motion even while in a state of stillness. Groundwood Books, 2016 It's the summer after high-school gradulation, and Emily is working at a catering company, making egg-salad sandwiches and
