Archives for posts with tag: should i read it

image: shovel ready

 

A writer publishes his debut novel. The writer has a toe hold in the literary establishment on both sides of the Canada/US border. The novel has a toe hold on both sides of the noir/sci-fi genre border. The setting of the novel is almost borderless; near-future New York functioning as everyplace and no place, a Gotham or Metropolis, a metaphor for where society has gone wrong. The protagonist is an assassin with a code: one foot on either side of the moral fence.

The review is not like the novel. The review has to pick a single side.

Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh. Should you read it?

Listen to the segment on CBC Day 6.

 

image: Holiday Reads 2013

 

For your last-minute gift-giving needs, my 2013 gift guide on CBC Day 6 includes:

For the fiction lover:
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Stoner by John Williams

For the tech-savvy reader, nonfiction fan or parent to teenage smartphone addicts:
Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson

For the graphic novel reader or whimsical adventurer  of any age (10 and up):
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg

For the cook:
The Old World Kitchen by Elisabeth Luard

Listen to the audio.

image: The Luminaries

 

On Tuesday night, Canadian-born Kiwi Eleanor Catton became the youngest author ever to win the Man Booker Prize. She won for The Luminaries, which, at 830-odd pages, is also the longest book ever to have won, and will forever be the last book to have won before the prize changed its entry rules to include writers beyond the Commonwealth and Ireland.

But should you read it?

I did – more quickly than I’d suggest you do. Here’s my conversation with Brent Bambury on CBC Day 6.

 

 

 

The NYT Magazine said it’s the best book you’ll read in 2013. High praise for a book that was published on January 10, a pub. date that I’m guessing will have amused the author considering the book’s title.

I discussed George Sunders’ heatbreaking and hilarious new story collection on Day 6 with Brent Bambury

Should you read it? Here’s the audio.

 

My 2012 Holiday Reads for Day 6 (also Far from the Tree, which I seem to have forgotten about when taking the picture...)

 

Three more shopping days till Christmas!

Here are my tips for the buzziest books underneath the tree this year, as shared with Brent Bambury on this morning’s CBC Day 6.

Shoppers in Toronto: you can get all of these and more at the fabulous Type Books, where I’m often to be found selling books of a weekend. All except Building Stories, that is, which is sold out everywhere in the city (gasp!) except for The Beguiling, which was clever enough to get a Santa’s warehouse full! Go indies!

Happy holiday reading folks.

It’s been 12 years since Zadie Smith published her break-out debut, White Teeth, and 7 years since her most recent novel, the brilliant On Beauty.

So … was NW worth the wait?
On Day 6 with Brent Bambury I say … YES. With a word of caution that the novel is “crazy good” in parts, but “chaotic and cluttered” in others.

Here’s the audio.

 

 

One of the great American novelists has published his first novel in 6 years and called it CANADA.

Cue excitement in literary circles everywhere, but most especially north of the border.

So … should you read it?

On CBC Day 6 this morning I said … probably not, no.

 


In a twist on our “Should I Read It?” segment, I talk to Brent Bambury on today’s CBC Day 6 about the buzz books that will be finding their way into many people’s stockings this year.

Gifts for fiction lovers, tricky teenagers, dentists, tech-fans, and anyone who enjoys a nice cocktail on a cross-country train.

Here’s the audio.

1Q84: Haruki Murakami’s mammoth new tome.

Some say it’s his masterpiece. Some say it just goes on too long.

I was on CBC Radio One’s Day 6 with Brent Bambury to weigh in and help you decide: Should I Read It?

We’ve been waiting nine years since Middlesex, so … does Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot live up to the hype?

On tomorrow’s CBC Day 6, I say … no.

Prepare to throw rotten tomatoes (at it, or me, depending on your own point of view).