When I was a girl, I walked the streets of New York City with Harriet the Spy. And I revisited it regularly via Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. From a young age, this was a city I recognized on the page, a place that felt real, a
Annie Proulx’s Bird Cloud (2011) immediately invites readers into Wyoming: “The blue-white road twists like an overturned snake showing its belly.” She describes the dust and the sage-brush and how it’s impossible not to think of “old ash-spewing volcanoes” as you move through Wyoming with its powdery soil. “The
In which there is talk of true stories and stories that fall between the cracks of imagined facts and probabilities. Kyo Maclear's Birds Art Life (2017) Arranged as though composed over a twelve-month period, this would seem to be the perfect book to read slowly, meditatively. To allow the pages
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
Emily Carroll’s Through the Woods (2014) Comprised of five long and two short works, these tales are peopled with losses and lonelinesses. Hues of red, black and white dominate the volume, with other colours used sparingly for contrast. Panel use is unpredictable, with images sometimes boxed but often sprawling and
