When I first read The Handmaid’s Tale, I was a teenager. In a few years, I would start to keep records about my reading: a log and handwritten (or typed( passages that I favoured along the way. The log in a notebook (usually practical rather than pretty) and the
Ian Williams landed in my stack with his longlisting for the ReLit Award in 2011. This is why I read prizelists: they encourage me to read in different directions, when left to my own devices, I sometimes plod along, in familiar reading territory, simply out of habit. The title
In the generation before my own, Newfoundland became a province in the nation currently called Canada. It’s about 3,000 km away from me, but it feels like a world apart. For me, as a reader, Michael Crummey’s The Innocents (2019) makes it seem both farther away and closer. Historical
Kaplan, McKay, Puntí, Rosenfarb and Shapton Short Stories in July, August, and September Whether in a dedicated collection or a magazine, these stories capture a variety of reading moods. This quarter, I returned to two favourite writers and also explored three new-to-me story writers.
In which there is talk of the slim stories which have travelled with me within the city. While bulkier volumes stayed home. Like Robertson Davies' Murther and Walking Spirits (1991). And Nazanine Hozar's Aria (2019). These are awkward travelling companions: thick and heavy But some of the skinnies in
