Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry
Daniel Zomparelli reviews Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry edited by Mona Fertig and Harold Rhenisch (Mother Tongue).
Michał Kozłowski
Sarajevo Marlboro
Michal Kozlowski reviews Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic, twenty-nine (very) short stories set in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s.
Sarah Leavitt
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Sarah Leavitt reviews Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel's first graphic novel full of vibrantly alive, expressive characters and richly satisfying extras.
Patty Osborne
Hunger
It takes Patty Osborne a month to get halfway through the 462 pages of the Giller Prize-winning novel The Polished Hoe, which is only halfway through the 24 hours during which the story takes place.
The Eyre Affair
Karen Schendlinger reviews The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, two smart, allegorical crime novels starring a detective named Thursday Next.
Patty Osborne
The Girl Without Anyone
The Girl Without Anyone is a series of linked short stories by Kelli Deeth, dealing with a teenage girl's budding sexuality, self-doubt and confusion. Reviewed by Patty Osborne.
Jocelyn Kuang
The Jonathans
Two different novels about family dysfunction—This Is Where I Leave you and The Corrections—written by two different Jonathans. Reviewed by Jocelyn Kuang.
S.K. Grant
The Joy of Cooking
"Scallions are eaten raw by self-assertive people": Why S.K. Grant was surprised to discover The Joy of Cooking as a literary work.
Clare Coughlan
The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess
Clare Coughlan reviews her experience seeing (and before that, waiting in line to see) The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess.
Michał Kozłowski
The Mole Chronicles
Michal Kozlowski reviews Andy Brown's debut novel The Mole Chronicles, which charts a sibling relationship involving moles, comic books, swimming pools, kidnapping, culture jamming and more.
Patty Osborne
Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers
Patty Osborne reviews Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers by Rebecca Stefoff, a book—complete with maps, drawings and photographs—that describes the travels of nine women.
Stephen Osborne
Shoot!
Despite high hopes, Stephen Osborne calls Shoot! by George Bowering his biggest disappointment.
Luanne Armstrong
Simple Recipes
Luanne Armstrong reviews "three of the better books of short stories to come out in 2001"—Kingdom of Monkeys, Simple Recipes and Sputnik Diner.
Michał Kozłowski
Stickboy: A Novel in Verse
In Stickboy, Shane Koyczan asks: what happens when the bullied begins to bully back? Reviewed by Michal Kozlowski.
Kris Rothstein
Souvenir of Canada
Kris Rothstein reviews Souvenir of Canada, which appeared at the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival, and Douglas Coupland's role in it and appearance at the festival.
Neil MacDonald
Streeters
Neil MacDonald reviews Streeters, a compilation of Rick Mercer's solo rants and raves from 22 Minutes, covering everything from Mike Harris in a Speedo to "Canuba," a sovereignty association between Canada and Cuba.
Carra Noelle Simpson
Teacher Man
Carra Noelle Simpson reviews Teacher Man and Half Nelson, two works on life in the inner-city high schools of New York.
Michael Hayward
The Bottom of the Harbor
"Old New Yorker writers never die, they just keep being republished in shiny new editions." Michael Hayward reviews collections of New Yorker pieces.
Sewid-Smith Daisy
The Onion
Melissa Edwards finds three references to Sisyphus in three different publications—all in the same day.
Holly Doyle
Thirty-three Teeth
Holly Doyle reviews Colin Cotterill’s novel Thirty-three Teeth, featuring Dr. Siri Paiboun, the seventy-two-year-old coroner of Laos.
Patty Osborne
Through Black Spruce
Joseph Boyden shows a darker side of First Nations life—darker, but not dark enough to stop one from reading it. Reviewed by Patty Osborne.
KELSEA O'CONNOR
Truth is Stranger
Kelsea O'Connor reviews Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, a lighthearted look at the embarrassing moments in the author's life.
GILLIAN JEROME
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
As a mother-to-be, Gillian Jerome cynically reviewed eight books on child care to glean what it means to be a mother in the twenty-first century.
HAL NIEDZVIECKI
White Lung
Hal Niedzviecki says White Lung by Grant Buday is the comic novel that should have been given to delegates at the WTO in Seattle.
The postcard presents a series of absences—the nameless photographer,
the unknown writer and recipient; it is constituted by what is unknown
Gabrielle Marceau
Fact
Main Character
I always longed to be the falling woman—impelled by unruly passion, driven by beauty and desire, turned into stone, drowned in flowers.
Mia + Eric
Future Perfect
New bylaws for civic spaces.
JUDY LEBLANC
Walking in the Wound
It is racism, not race, that is a risk factor for dying of COVID-19.
SADIQA DE MEIJER
Do No Harm
Doing time is not a blank, suspended existence.
Kristen den Hartog
The Insulin Soldiers
It was as though a magic potion had brought him back to life.
Steven Heighton
Everything Turns Away
Going unnoticed must be the root sorrow for the broken.
DANIEL CANTY
The Sum of Lost Steps
On the curve of the contagion and on the measure of Montreality.
Brad Cran
Fact
Potluck Café
It took me a million miles to get here and half the time I was doing it in high heels.
Carellin Brooks
Ripple Effect
I am the only woman in the water. The rest of the swimmers are men or boys. One of them bobs his head near me, a surprising vision in green goggles, like an undocumented sea creature. I imagine us having sex, briefly, him rocking over me like a wave.
MARCELLO DI CINTIO
The Great Wall of Montreal
The chain-link fence along boulevard de l’Acadie— two metres high, with “appropriate hedge”—separates one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Montreal from one of the poorest.
Michał Kozłowski
New World Publisher
Randy Fred thought that life after residential school would be drinking, watching TV and dying. Instead, he became the "greatest blind Indian publisher in the world."
BRAD YUNG
Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late
"I want to buy a house. And build a secret room in it. And not tell the kids about it."
Paul Tough
City Still Breathing: Listening to the Weakerthans
I wasn’t certain whether I was in Winnipeg because of the Weakerthans, or whether I cared about the Weakerthans because I care about Winnipeg.
Stephen Osborne
This Postcard Life
Spiritual landscapes and unknowable people captured on film, used to convey a message.
Hilary M. V. Leathem
To Coronavirus, C: An Anthropological Abecedary
After Paul Muldoon and Raymond Williams.
Bill MacDonald
The Ghost of James Cawdor
A seance to contact a dead miner at Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1923—conducted by Conan Doyle himself.
Ann Diamond
The Second Life of Kiril Kadiiski
He has been called the greatest Bulgarian poet of his generation. Can one literary scandal bury his whole career?
Caroline Adderson
Lives of the House
A basement shrine in her 1920s home inspires Caroline Adderson to discover the past lives of her house and its inhabitants.
Ivan Coyote
Shouldn’t I Feel Pretty?
Somewhere in the sweat and ache and muscle I carved a new shape for myself that made more sense.
David L. Chapman
Postcolonial Bodies
Mastery of the self
CONNIE KUHNS
There is a Wind that Never Dies
"If you are still alive, you must have had the experience of surrendering."
Sarah Leavitt
Small Dogs
Emily’s mother had unusually large eyes that bulged slightly and often turned red, and she stared at people in restaurants and stores. Sometimes Emily’s mother commented on these people’s conversations, or laughed at their jokes, as if she were part
Ola Szczecinska
Symbiosis in Warsaw
Ola Szczecinska returns to Warsaw to visit her grandmother, and to keep from losing her memories.
Michael Hayward reviews Everything Rustles by Jane Silcott and Born Out of This by Christine Lowther.
Lily Gontard
Fathers and Daughters
Lily Gontard reviews A Rock Fell on the Moon by Alicia Priest and The Stone Thrower by Jael Ealey Richardson.
Norbert Ruebsaat
Ice & Fire
Over Christmas I read my friend Stephen Osborne’s book Ice & Fire (Arsenal Pulp Press), which is also a Geist Book, and felt I was reading a handshake: familiar and new.
Michael Hayward
Dream-Life of Cities
"If cities can be said to be alive, how many of them dream of growing up to become Paris?" Michael Hayward reviews How Paris Became Paris by Joan DeJean.
Kris Rothstein
All Folked Up
Kris Rothstein recounts her experience at the Pickathon, a music festival in Portland, Oregon.
Patty Osborne
Spectrums
Patty Osborne reviews Do You Think This Is Strange? by Aaron Cully Drake, a look into the mind of an autistic teenage boy.
Daniel Francis
Toronto The Good
Daniel Francis reviews Toronto: Biography of a City, a book bound to irritate readers who live outside Toronto—the "centre of the Canadian universe."
ANNMARIE MACKINNON
Einsteinium Ist Nicht Geil
AnnMarie MacKinnon reviews Einsteinium (Es), an element discovered by a non-Einstein Albert.
Stephen Osborne
Martin John and the Demon Mother
"In Martin John, Anakana Schofield’s new novel, the reader is beckoned, saluted, enticed and then drawn inexorably into the life of a demented young man."
Eve Corbel
Gagster Movies
Eve Corbel reviews two short biographic documentaries: Seth's Dominion and I Thought I Told You to Shut Up.
roni-simunovic
Space-time Queertinuum
Beyond: The Queer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology is an action-packed, swashbuckling collection of short comics produced by twenty six writers and artists of diverse sexualities and genders.
Stephen Osborne
Unhappy
Stephen Osborne discusses the happiness level of Vancouver, the best place on earth.
ANNMARIE MACKINNON
Skip to the Obits
AnnMarie MacKinnon reviews Death and the Penguin, a novel that follows the life of a young Ukrainian writer and his penguin.
Stephen Osborne
A Dream of Bearded Ladies
Stephen Osborne talks about Bearded Ladies, a documentary about the works of renowned photographer Rosamond Norbury.
JILL MANDRAKE
Here Lies
Jill Mandrake reviews Local Customs by Audrey Thomas, a ghost story and murder mystery set in West Africa.
Michael Hayward
To the Moomins! (And Beyond)
Michael Hayward reviews Moomin: The Deluxe Anniversary Edition by Tove Jansson, a collection of comic strips that contain "the poetry of our world: sad, joyful, dangerous, enchanting."
roni-simunovic
Out and About
Roni Simunovic reviews Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives by Nia King, a collection of interviews about gender and sexuality, and how to make art, make rent and survive.
Stephen Osborne
Marginal
Stephen Osborne finds a copy of Francoise Sagan's Those Without Shadows at the bus stop, complete with margin notes that create a new sort of text.
Patty Osborne
Buffalo Gal
Patty Osborne reviews The Perimeter Dog by Julie Vandervoort.
Michał Kozłowski
Bukowski Effect
Michal Kozlowski reviews Stardust, Bruce Serafin's essay collection: "punchy narrative, little exposition, unburdened by political correctness."
Stephen Osborne
Don't Look Back
Stephen Osborne reviews The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature by Franco Moretti.
Patty Osborne
Elizabeth Is Missing
"When your narrator has Alzheimer’s Disease, neither you nor she can be sure of the facts, which is what makes this such an intriguing story."
Patty Osborne
Aging: Not For the Faint of Heart
"We don’t often get clear and honest reflections out of hundred-year-old men, which is why Frank White’s new book is such a great read."
Michael Hayward
Artists Behaving Badly
Michael Hayward reviews the honest, outrageous and at times unflattering biographies of Lucian Freud and Rockwell Kent.
Phrase books are tools of cultural globalization—but they are also among its casualties.
Stephen Henighan
Collateral Damage
When building a nation, cultural riches can be lost.
Stephen Henighan
Transatlantic Fictions
Coming to harbour in a new world.
Alberto Manguel
Arms and Letters
Science and the arts fulfil their functions to help us survive through the imagination.
CHERYL THOMPSON
Dismantling the Myth of the Hero
In a world dominated by heroes, difference is not tolerated.
Stephen Henighan
Reheated Races
Dividing and conquering local populations confines them to manageable administrative units.
Alberto Manguel
Achilles and the Lusitan Tortoise
“Have patience” and “Tomorrow” are two inseparable locutions in the Portuguese tongue.
Stephen Henighan
All in the Same CANO
For a brief period the band CANO gave shape to the dream of a bilingual Canadian culture.
LISA BIRD-WILSON
Occupation Anxiety
Lisa Bird-Wilson on UNDRIP, reconciliation, and the anxiety felt by Indigenous people in Canada.
Stephen Henighan
Residential Roots
"The hemispheric context reveals the roots of the residential school system...Destroying Indigenous cultures was a positivist policy from Patagonia to Dawson City."
Stephen Henighan
Not Reading
What we do when we absorb words from a screen—and we haven’t yet evolved a verb for it—is not reading.
Alberto Manguel
Library as Wishful Thinking
Libraries are not only essential in educating the soul, but in forming the identity of a society.
Stephen Henighan
Lethal Evolutions
Our society is formed on the assumption of a healthy immune system.
Stephen Henighan
Plague
What we can—and can’t—learn from the plague
Alberto Manguel
Léon Bloy and His Monogamous Reader
Dogged dedication grants a reader vicarious immortality.
Stephen Henighan
Confidence Woman
The woman who called herself Tatiana Aarons gave me an address that led to a vacant lot.
Stephen Henighan
A Pen Too Far
On March 5, 2006, a group of people gathered in a small Ontario city in the expectation of having books signed by an author who was not present.
George Fetherling
The Daily Apocalypse
The newspaper wars aren’t what they used to be.
Stephen Henighan
Taíno Tales
A package-deal paradise reputation curtails gringo knowledge of Dominican life.
Alberto Manguel
A Fairy Tale for Our Time
What can the Brothers Grimm teach us about the state of our economic system? Everything.
Alberto Manguel
Art and Blasphemy
Faith seems to shiver when confronted by art.
Alberto Manguel
Literature & Morality
Must artists declare their moral integrity?
Stephen Henighan
Flight Shame
Without air travel, family networks might have dissolved long ago.
Alberto Manguel
The Defeat of Sherlock Holmes
There’s something not quite right about the grid on which the game is played.
His wallet’s stuffed with currency from allmanner of countries not in business now;his camera aches for discontinued film.
KATIE DAUBS
To Be Read by My Children in the Event of My Demise
In Katie Daubs' short fiction, a father writes a deathbed letter to his children, explaining the surprising way he really met their mother.
CRAIG SAVEL
Traversing Leonard
"He had white hair at every angle, a paunch, and he didn’t bathe much. Colleagues joked about the Leonard Condensate, one whiff of which reduced matter into muck."
MARY MEIGS
Tripwire
They felt comfortable in their resemblances, too comfortable to note that the resemblances contained differences like tripwires cunningly laid and hidden.
ERIC DUPONT
Trouble at the Henhouse
"I now know that every omelette, every angel cake, every soufflé, and every bucket of Colonel Sanders’ fried chicken brings us closer to a better, more intelligent world, where cruelty and pettiness do not exist."
CARY FAGAN
My Father's Picasso
"You know what I think it's worth?" Goldie said. "Fifteen bucks for the frame."
CARY FAGAN
My Father's Picasso
"You know what I think it's worth?" Goldie said. "Fifteen bucks for the frame."
Rhonda Waterfall
Night Kitchen
The phone rings at 11:30 at night and as soon as you hear your father’s voice you know something bad has happened.
No One Explains Things To Dogs
No one explains things to dogs. The voice that’s missing has left its aroma everywhere,along with the faint stale smells of those who used to be here:
ANTONINE MAILLET
Not Really French
So how can we be Québécois if we don’t live in Québec? Well, for the love of all that’s holy, where the hell do we live, then?
GORAN SIMIC
Old People and Snow
My beautiful old ones are disappearing slowly. They simply leave, without rules, without a farewell.
Veronica Gaylie
Old Timer Talkin’
Uncle Tom lies in St. Paul’s Emergency pacemaker jumping like a sockeye salmon while he teaches two nurses four verses of Danny Boy.
Pacific Meats & Frozen Foods, Inc.
Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens
Peops: Portraits & Stories of People
Phenotypes & Flag-Wavers
Jill Boettger
Poem For the Barn
Here is your rickety wooden poem. Here is your red, peeling paint poem, your weather-beaten and abused poem. Here is your hands-full-of-slivers poem, knuckle-broken and arthritic.
SUE GOYETTE
Fidelity
Three poems by Sue Goyette, excerpted from her book Penelope.
VIVEK SHRAYA
First Pluck
A young boy gets his first pair of tweezers after overhearing locker room conversations about body hair in this excerpt from God Loves Hair by Vivek Shraya.
Steven Heighton
Fireman's Carry
In this excerpt from Steven Heighton's new book, The Dead Are More Visible, a firefighter must decide what lives are worth saving in the heat of a four-alarm fire. The official line is that firefighters save people—but what about reptiles?
Five Stories, Nine Selves
That’s what matters to me, these stories, you kick them up in the dust and they get inside you.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Tom Walmsley
Kid Stuff
Moth fought his last fight in the basement of a church forty miles out of town. The crowd was polite and applauded after every round, but made hardly a sound while the punches were being thrown. None of the overhead lights were extinguished and there
King of the Lost & Found
BILL BISSETT
Kontest Carnage
langwage binds us 2gethr separatelee n parts n sharing almost replikating nevr reelee xact wun uv th biggest communal spells we ar all bound n unbound in