Although I always have a small stack of books underway, I have carried to extremes this act of multi-booking this summer. Yesterday I finished Michael Crummey’s new novel (Sweetland), Alison Wearing’s memoir (Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter), Jan Zwicky’s poetry collection, the second volume in the Fruits Basket manga series,
Shani Mootoo sidles up to her story. Random House Canada, 2014 A novel like Padma Viswanathan’s The Ever After of Ashwin Rao is more openly preoccupied with questions of grief and loss. One like Shyam Selvadurai’s The Hungry Ghosts explores family relationships and the passage of time in
In the story, it is Joan who prolongs the name "with a certain tone of celebration". Penelope. But it's easy to imagine that it is actually Alice Munro who is savouring every syllable as she draws it out in ink. Pen-ell-oh-pee. You can imagine her there, à la Winslet and DiCaprio, at the
Inherently uncomfortable. Essentially intimate. The relationship between dentist and patient is complex, contradictory. Little Brown & Company, 2014 Most of us view that relationship from the perspective of patient, so Paul O'Rourke's voice has the potential to be illuminating, unique, fresh. In earlier works, Joshua Ferris has vividly inhabited
Look closely. HarperCollins, 2014 Things are not what they seem. Or, are more than they seem. Or, too much to bear if they are seen. Or, impossible to see. The Eye of the Day is an assured and sophisticated novel: disorienting, nourishing and powerful storytelling. (It is certainly
