canada reads 2020

July 23, 2020 //

Canada Reads titles 2020

 

CBC Radio’s battle of the books is over for another year.

The show was originally scheduled for the 3rd week in March, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After 4 days of debate, Samra Habib’s We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir, defended by Amanda Brugel, was the winner.

All five books (fanned out awkwardly in my hand) are well worth your time (Son of a Trickster is my personal favourite).

I spoke to local CBC radio shows across the country from St. John’s to Winnipeg to Whitehorse to recap some of the heated and most heartfelt moments from this year’s debates.

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books

jim carrey wrote a novel

July 12, 2020 //

Memoirs and Misinformation by Jim Carrey

 

“Should I Read It?” review for Memoirs and Misinformation: A Novel by Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon. 

Listen to the review HERE

Jim Carrey wrote a novel – with novelist Dana Vachon. It’s “a novel” but it’s called “Memoirs and Misinformation.” The book cover carries a Jim Carrey quote: “None of this is real and all of it is true.” The protagonist is a Hollywood star named Jim Carrey who shares a biography with the real Jim Carrey. It’s a novel that has a foot in the memoir camp then.

It’s a story about apocalypse (mid-2020 timely), Hollywood excess (always timely), and fear of the end of relevance (always timely to people of a certain stature above a certain age, perhaps). It is certain to be a bestseller.

But should YOU read it?

My review for Day 6 on CBC Radio >> listen here

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Reviews

day 6 summer reads 2020

June 30, 2020 //

Day 6 Summer Reads 2020

 

An eagerly awaited (by me definitely, and also by many others) new novel by the The Outlander author Gil Adamson, a domestic page-turner of from Katrina Onstad, stunning debut fiction from poet Souvankham Thammavongsa, and a debut from American Gabriel Bump, centred around a fictional race riot in Chicago.

All four of my summer reads recommendations this year landed at the exact right time: books to provide escape and reflection in a year unlike any other.

 

 

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Categories Broadcast, Buzz Books, Reviews

summer 2020’s hottest books

June 30, 2020 //

Globe Summer Reads

 

  • Summer Books Preview: 34 of the Season’s Hottest Reads >> Read it here

Literary escapism, armchair travel, nail-biters, family sagas,  famous lives, and encouragement to get outdoors: 34 of the biggest books hitting shelves this summer.

 

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Categories Globe Books, Writing

spring things to read

April 20, 2020 //

2020 Spring preview - Globe

 

“To read a new book in spring 2020 is to open a time capsule. Books written, edited and printed before the pandemic must now be read in an altered world – one that’s shrunk and retreated to the confines of four walls.

Something fascinating and almost shocking is to be found in the diurnal detail of a new novel. Take Cordelia Strube’s Misconduct of the Heart, centred around a small restaurant that would now be closed for all but takeout. Or Eimear McBride’s Strange Hotel, in which the protagonist flies off to a series of hotels and commits such unthinkable acts as pressing a concierge’s brass bell with her naked finger.

Dystopian fiction (of which there is plenty) carries a different echo of our present moment. Business tomes must be read through the lens of a new economy. Books about the beauty and power of nature and the resilience of the human spirit feel more urgent (and moving) than ever.

Whether you’re looking for escapism or for answers about our current situation, the spring has a bounty of new books to suit your needs.”

From my 2020 Spring Books Preview for the Globe and Mail.

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Categories Globe Books, Writing
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