Archives for posts with tag: day 6

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

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.

 

 

2020 Holiday Gift Guide CBC

Another year, another holiday gift guide. It wasn’t my intention to choose books whose covers were so matchy-matchy, but it’s a nice bonus if you want to splurge and buy them all together!

Listen to the audio here >> LISTEN

My top picks for 2019 are:

The Innocents by Michael Crummey – my favourite Canadian novel of the year

Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry – my favourite non-Canadian novel of the year

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow – already a Pulitzer Prize winner and major buzz book, this book about the journalist’s pursuit of the Harvey Weinstein story reads like a le Carré novel

Agnes, Murderess by Sara Leavitt – an awesome Canadian historical graphic novel with a queer subplot and gothic vibe, this will appeal to teens and adults

Just Because by Mac Barnett illus. Isabelle Arsenault and King Mouse by Cary Fagan illus. Dena Seiferling – two picture books for little kids that tell two very different stories, both about kindness, patience, and the magic of imagination.

 

 

sally rooney

 

Sally Rooney = international literary sensation.

Her new novel, Normal People, has been out for aaaaaages in the UK and Ireland, but has only just made it to North America.

Should you read it?

My review for Day 6 >> audio.

Mars Room

 

Romy Hall is serving two life sentences without parole for murder. She did it. That’s not in doubt. But did she have any choice? Or did life deal her a hand that could’ve had no other outcome?

Rachel Kushner’s third novel is bristling with detail, bursting with love, and heavy with despair.

Should you read it?

My review for CBC Radio’s Day 6 >> listen here

 

Heart Berries cover _ March 2018

 

Heart Berries, the debut memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot, went straight onto the bestseller lists when it was published in Canada last week. But should YOU read it?

My review for CBC Day 6 >> listen here

Holiday Reads 2017

 

I made a list, Day 6 gifted it twice!

Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, YA, a music biography and (not pictured) an adorable picture book for kids.

What will you find in your stocking this year … ?

Listen to the audio here.

Hanks Weiner SIRI

 

Tom Hanks (of Academy Award-winning actor fame) and Matthew Weiner (of Sopranos and Mad Men fame) have both just released their debut books.

Should you read them?

The “Should I Read It?’ segment gets two for the price of one this week. My review for Day 6 on CBC Radio One >> listen

Legacy of Spies

 

For his 24th novel, spy-novel master John le Carré returns to his most famous and beloved creation, George Smiley.

Sort of.

Narrated by Smiley’s younger protégé Peter Guillam, A Legacy of Spies serves as both a prequel and a sequel to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Readers are united with old friends Guillam, Smiley, and Alec Leamas in the years leading up to the mission detailed in TSWCIFTC, and with the now-pretty-old Guillam and Smiley in the early 21st Century (though you’ll have to wait until the very end to see Smiley in anything but a flashback).

The novel has been met with much international fanfare.

Should you read it?

Spy puns (and unexpected Star Wars comparisons) abound in my review for CBC Day 6.

Listen here >> audio

Into the Water

 

This weekend’s # 1 bestseller is the sophomore novel from The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins. But should you read it?

My review on CBC’s Day 6 >> listen here.