Another voice-driven young woman’s story—Fatima Daas’s The Last One (2021)—held me rapt throughout. At first, I wondered if the repetitive variations on “My name is Fatima” that open each segment of the story would grate on me but, perhaps because the prose is arranged so that it’s almost-verse-like, it
Yesterday, in the wake of the librarians’ shushing, some might have taken advantage of the ensuing silence for a nap. Now, yawning ourselves awake, we can resume our chat about the overlap between fiction and non-fiction, in sprawling and slightly chaotic stacks and shelves. In the opening story of
This year I’ve been reading more non-fiction than usual. It’s not that I’ve been trying, it’s only that I’ve allowed my curiosity to access my holds queue. When I have questions after I’ve finished a novel, I’ve allowed myself to wander more than usual. It’s created an interesting rhythm
Earlier this year, my Langston Hughes (1902-1967) reading (Part One, Part Two) was focussed more on his own writing. From his short stories to the first volume of his autobiography. But along the way, I’ve enjoyed a number of other books by and about him. “I should get Langston
Recently I found an old New Canadian Library copy of Mordecai Richler’s second novel, Son of a Smaller Hero, originally published in 1955 (this copy a reprint from 1969), in a Little Free Library. When I find one of these tightly bound pocketbooks with their abstract, blotchy-arted covers second-hand,
