Dundurn, 2011 The ReLit shortlist was announced earlier this week, but I'm still reading from the longlist. Farzana Doctor's Six Metres of Pavement (Dundurn, 2011) was also nominated for the Toronto Book Award. That's fitting because the setting plays an important role in this story, but much of the drama
In today's bookish chatter: a plateful of Rosemary Nixon's Kalila and two snack-sized servings of Britt Holmström's Leaving Berlin and George Elliot Clarke's Red. If Rosemary Nixon's Kalila came with a cover summary, many readers would put the book aside. And, yet, only a few pages into the story, the
Well, then, I'd be lying. Because nothing is like Anne of Green Gables, right? But I'll Be Watching gave me a lot of the same feelings that reading my battered copy of Montgomery's story gives me. That's bound to sound hyperbolic, so let me explain. Pamela Porter's novel opens
! Do you have an author in whose works you repeatedly get stuck? Doncha love the '80s cover? You're just sure you're going to love them, but you can't seem to read them? That's what had happened with me and Edith Wharton. Well, that's not entirely
House of Anansi, 2011 It's with those proverbial good intentions that Reverend Neil MacKenzie moves to St. Kilda. (Oh, dear: you know the risk here, right?) He is travelling there -- accompanied by his young pregnant wife, Elizabeth -- to bring his faith to the island's residents. (Think
