Rave Reviews: CASE STUDY, ORDINARY WONDER TALES, THE POWER OF STORY, ON BROWSING and more!

IN THE NEWS!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been featured by The New York Times as one of “100 Notable Books of 2022.” The article was published online on November 22, 2022.

You can read the full article here.

Pick up your copy of Case Study here!

ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart (November 1, 2022), has been reviewed by Robert J. Wiersema in the Toronto Star! The review was published online on November 24, 2022. Read the review here.

Wiersema writes,

“A book of both deep thought and intense feeling, Ordinary Wonder Tales is, literally, a collection of wonders, and a truly beautiful account of a life lived in the nexus of the temporal and the eternal. It’s a treasure.”

Emily Urquhart, author of Ordinary Wonder Tales was interviewed by Jackie Sharkey on CBC Afternoon Drive! The episode was posted on November 15, 2022. Listen to the full interview here.

Ordinary Wonder Tales has been reviewed in the Midwest Book Review! The review was published online on November 14, 2022. Read the review here.

Reviewer Susan Bethany writes,

“A collective masterpiece of literary criticism, insights, observations, perceptions, and appreciation, Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart is an extraordinarily thoughtful and thought-provoking read.”

Ordinary Wonder Tales was also reviewed by Kerry Clare in Pickle Me This! The review was published online on November 21, 2022. Check it out here.

Clare writes,

“These essays—beautiful, rich and absorbing—will change the way you see your place in the world, and they’ll leave you noticing all the magic at its fringes.”

Grab your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) has been featured on the Globe and Mail’s list of “The Best Books to Gift This Year.” The list was published online on November 18, 2022. Read the full list here.

The Globe and Mail writes:

“Poet and former London antiquarian bookseller recalls his life between the covers, from growing up in rural Ontario to his journey among eccentric buyers, sellers and other obsessives.”

Get your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

YOU ARE HERE

You Are Here: Selected Stories by Cynthia Flood (November 15, 2022), has been reviewed in the BC Review! The review was published online on November 21, 2022. Check it out here.

Reviewer Ginny Ratsoy writes,

“Curated from a body of work published over a 35-year period, You Are Here presents insightful, often incisive, glances into fictional lives … Cynthia Flood employs a realistic style to glances into characters who are products of their respective time and place, while at the same time surprising, sometimes jarring, us with unpredictability.”

Get your copy of You Are Here here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022), has been reviewed in The Spectator. The article was published on November 24, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Leaf Arbuthnot writes,

“There is an island in the Caribbean so small that it doesn’t appear on many world maps … The island is the subject of the Canadian writer Michael Hingston’s often excellent Try Not to Be Strange. I can see booksellers scratching their heads over where to shelve it. Part memoir, part travelogue, it’s also a beer-soaked history of pub-going in mid-20th-century Soho, and an exhaustive record of a made up and deeply eccentric monarchy.”

Pick up your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has been reviewed in the December issue of the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published online on November 21, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Christina Turner writes,

“Johnson’s idea is a powerful one: that a person is not only the “author” but also the “editor” of his or her life, that reframing a narrative is enough to change it.”

The Power of Story has also been reviewed in The Link. The review was published online on November 24, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Claire Helston-VanDuzer’s writes,

“[The Power of Story] is quite the legacy to leave behind … Clear and telling, this final work by Johnson is educational, cohesive and a very intriguing read.”

Get your copy of The Power of Story here!

ON BROWSING

Jason Guriel’s On Browsing (October 4, 2022) was listed as a best book of 2022 at the Times Literary Supplement. The list was published online on November 20, 2022. Find the whole list here.

A.E. Stallings writes,

“I enjoyed Jason Guriel’s hymn to life before algorithms, On Browsing, in which I recognized my own youth among malls, bookstores and card catalogues.”

Grab your copy of On Browsing here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review, “Press baron’s rise and fall a riveting read,” was published online on November 19, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Douglas Johnston writes,

“Bourrie’s research is meticulous, and his writing has great pace and bounce. McCullagh’s rags-to-riches accession to press baron, and dark sudden demise, is a remarkable story.”

Get your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

ESTATES LARGE AND SMALL

Ray Robertson, author of Estates Large and Small (August 16, 2022) was interviewed by Bookin podcast. The interview was published online on November 21, 2022. You can listen to the full episode here.

Estates Large and Small was also reviewed in the December issue of the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published online on November 21, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Jules Lewis writes,

“Sinking deeper into these existential questions, as Estates Large and Small does, scrapes away a sheltering layer of existence, bringing the reader into closer proximity to both joy and loss. Musing about his profession, Phil at one point says, ‘I was only renting my books.’ Indeed, Ray Robertson asks us to think about life as a rental, and to make the best out of it before our lease runs out.”

Grab your copy of Estates Large and Small here!

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (November 1, 2022), have been reviewed by Lindsey Childs in Prairie Fire! The review was published online on November 15, 2022. Read the full review here.

Childs called this year’s stories:

“A nice, creepy reprieve from all the holly and jolly of the holidays. Seth’s black and white illustrations provide a delicious sense for foreboding and unease to these tales of the dearly departed.”

Pick up the 2022 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the whole series here!

Reviews and Interviews: QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL, ON BROWSING, BIG MEN FEAR ME and more!

IN THE NEWS!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Kevin Lambert, author of Querelle of Roberval (trans. by Donald Winkler, August 2, 2022) was interviewed by Nantali Indongo at CBC Montreal’s The Bridge. Listen to the whole episode here.

Indongo says of Querelle of Roberval,

“BAM! That’s what I felt as I started reading.”

Grab your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books. The review was published online on November 14, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Niedermann writes,

“Not only does he give us a portrait of a man who was central to a critical period in Canadian history, he illuminates the complexities of those years as well, in the process pulling back the rosy curtain of forgetfulness and nostalgia that has slowly descended over us in the years since to remind us of how fraught our politics and society were then. A truly great accomplishment!”

Pick up your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has featured on CBC’s The Next Chapter. The episode, which was recorded as part of Vancouver Writers Fest, aired on November 11, 2022.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab your copy of The Power of Story here!

ON BROWSING

Jason Guriel was interviewed about On Browsing (Oct 4, 2022) for the OC Register/LA Daily News. The interview was posted online on November 12, 2022. Read the whole interview here.

Guriel tells Erik Pederson,

“[Browsing] was a topic that I wasn’t even conscious of it being important to me until I started writing it. I found myself getting quite emotional that some of the stores that have meant a lot to me have vanished.”

Get your copy of On Browsing here!

MAN OR MANGO?

Lucy Ellmann‘s Man or Mango? (November 8, 2022) was reviewed at the Miramichi Reader. You can read the whole review here.

Reviewer Alison Manley writes,

“Prickly, strange and wholly ridiculous, the characters of Man or Mango? are delightful and so are their strange, overlapping journeys. People who enjoy mysterious, character-driven, plotless fiction will be at home in this novel, a lovely taste of what Ellmann can do.”

Pick up your copy of man or Mango? here!

THE DAY-BREAKERS

Michael Fraser, author of The Day-Breakers (April 12, 2022) has been interviewed by Rob McLennan on his blog, Periodicities. The interview was published online on November 14, 2022. You can read the complete list here.

Grab your copy of The Day-Breakers here!

Rave Reviews: CASE STUDY, THIS TIME THAT PLACE, ON BROWSING, ORDINARY WONDER TALES, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed on the So Many Damn Books podcast episode featuring Kate Beaton. The episode was published online on November 8, 2022. You can listen to the full episode here.

Case Study by was reviewed in the Star Tribune by Malcom Forbes and the Chicago Review of Books by Marcie McCauley. Both reviews were published online on November 11, 2022.

Forbes writes, in the Star Tribune:

“Macrae’s novel works on various levels. It is an elaborate, mind-bending guessing game; it is a blackly comic and quietly moving study of a nervous breakdown; and it is a captivating portrait of an egomaniac. If the notebooks depict a gripping chain of events, then the biographical sections expertly flesh out the grotesque, manipulative yet charismatic Braithwaite. Macrae has reliably delivered another work of fiendish fun.”

You can read the full review here.

McCauley writes, in the Chicago Review of Books:

“Burnet is the ultimate unreliable narrator, and Case Study serves as a worthy addition to his oeuvre.”

You can read the full review here.

Get your copy of Case Study here!

THIS TIME, THAT PLACE

This Time, That Place: Selected Stories by Clark Blaise (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed at the Globe and Mail. The review was published on November 4, 2022. You can read the whole review here.

In a review titled “Clark Blaise is the greatest Canadian writer no one has heard about,” David Moscrop writes,

“More people should read Blaise … Contemporary life is full of irreconcilable tensions. This Time, That Place captures a handful of them, simultaneously telling stories of three countries and a multitude of identities that cut across various social, culture, political and economic dimensions.”

This Time, That Place has been reviewed in the Toronto Star! The review was published on November 11, 2022. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Robert J. Wiersema writes,

This Time, That Place is not only a stunning collection of fiction, it is one of considerable importance; most readers will not recognize how much they have been lacking in their reading lives until they experience the work of Clark Blaise first-hand.”

This Time, That Place was also listed at Lit Hub’s “15 new books to dive into this week.” The article was posted Nov 8, 2022. Find the whole list here.

Get your copy of This Time, That Place here!

ON BROWSING

Jason Guriel‘s On Browsing (Oct 4, 2022) was mentioned in the New York Times‘s “Newly Published” column on November 11, 2022!

You can find the whole list here.

Grab your copy of On Browsing here.

ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Emily Urquhart, author of Ordinary Wonder Tales (November 1, 2022), has been interviewed by Joseph Planta on The Commentary podcast! The episode was posted on November 4, 2022. Listen to the full interview here.

Planta calls the book:

“A highly readable, fascinating collection … The pieces are thoughtful and … enriching. The book is captivating, and as one critic has said, spellbinding.”

Grab your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has been reviewed in That Shakespearean Rag by Steven Beattie. The review was published on October 15, 2022, and can be read here.

Steven Beattie writes,

“By examining Indigenous stories, ways of living, dying, and—yes—laughing, Johnson … offer[s] powerful alternatives to hierarchical structures of society that insist on consuming the Earth’s natural resources at an unsustainable pace.”

Pick up your copy of The Power of Story here!

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories 2022 (November 1, 2022), have been featured on the So Many Damn Books podcast! The episode aired on November 8, 2022. You can listen to the episode here (review starts at 7:10).

Host Christopher Hermelin praised the series’

“really beautiful art, and great stories.”

Grab all three 2022 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the rest of the series here.

SHIMMER

Alex Pugsley author of Shimmer (May 17, 2022) was interviewed on Bookin It podcast. The episode was published online on November 7, 2022.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Get your copy of Shimmer here!

MAN OR MANGO?

Lucy Ellmann‘s Man or Mango? (November 8, 2022) has been excerpted at Lit Hub. The excerpt went up on November 2, 2022. You can read the whole excerpt here.

Man or Mango? was also on Lit Hub‘s “15 new books to dive into this week.” The article was posted November 8, 2022. Find the whole list here.

Grab your copy of Man or Mango? here!

DANTE’S INDIANA

Dante’s Indiana by Randy Boyagoda (September 2021) has been reviewed at Eurasia Review. You can read the whole review here.

Reviewer Kevin Duffy calls it:

“An entertaining and theologically deft take on the consequences of the choices we all make as we seek the Good … Dante’s Indiana is a superb literary achievement.”

Get your copy of Dante’s Indiana here.

Or, start with the first book, Original Prin, here!

HOUSEHOLDERS

Householders cover

Householders by Kate Cayley (September 2021) was reviewed at Full-Stop Magazine. The review was posted November 9, 2022. Check out the review here.

Reviewer Emily Alex writes,

“It would be something of a shame to read any of these stories individually, or to read them just once through, as moving outside and around them is one of the pleasures of this text. Householders is not a collection about the singular self, but about the individual uneasily negotiating subjectivity in a manner that is intrinsically relational; and appropriately, the narratives seem to continue into and across one another, propelled by differences that underscore their symmetries. The work’s most disruptive insights emerge from these interactions. In a sense, the success of this collection lies in its failure as a novel.”

Pick up your copy of Householders here!

Reviews, Awards, and Interviews: CASE STUDY, ORDINARY WONDER TALES, CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed by Christian Lorentzen in the New York Times! The review was published online on November 1, 2022. Read the full NYT review here.

Lorentzen writes,

Case Study has a lot in common with the novels of Vladimir Nabokov and Roberto Bolaño, in which invented characters pass through tumultuous episodes of literary history that never quite happened, though it seems as if they should have. … Case Study is a diverting novel, overflowing with clever plays on and inversions of tropes of English intellectual and social life during the postwar decades.”

Case Study has been featured on Lit Hub as one of “18 new books to kick your November reading into gear.” The list was posted on November 1, 2022 and can be read here.

Case Study was reviewed by Jessica Brockmole for The Historical Novel Society. The review was published online on November 1, 2022. Read the full review here.

Brockmole writes,

Case Study is a dizzying dive into British counterculture of the 1960s and the radical anti-psychiatry movement … wildly inventive and slickly written. The notebooks feel so casually and authentically from the period, with ‘Rebecca’s’ word choices and the details she includes saying as much about 1960s British society as they do about her place in it. ‘Rebecca’ is deliciously unreliable as a narrator.”

Graeme Macrae Burnet has been interviewed by Lily Meyer for Crime Reads. The interview was posted online on November 3, 2022 an can be read here.

Meyer writes,

“Burnet propels readers through the novel with his fierce, hilarious intelligence.”

Case Study has also been excerpted in Lit Hub and featured by Vol 1. Brooklyn as part of their “November 2022 Book Preview.” The excerpt, and preview were published online on November 3, 2022. Read the Lit Hub here, and Vol 1. Brooklyn here.

Grab your copy of Case Study here!

ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Emily Urquhart, author of Ordinary Wonder Tales (November 1, 2022), was interviewed by Lisa Godfrey on CBC Ideas! The episode on hauntings aired on October 25, 2022. Emily’s segment begins at 25:00 mins. Listen to the full episode here.

Ordinary Wonder Tales has been reviewed by Kathleen Rooney in LIBER: A Feminist Review. The review will be published in print in their Winter 2022 issue. Read the full review here.

Kathleen writes,

“In Ordinary Wonder Tales, Urquhart stylishly combines her personal experiences with her academic expertise, leading to a reading experience that feels entertaining and casual yet also edifying … It’s a testament to Urquhart’s own formidable storytelling skill that each of her essays inspires a quiet awe.”

Ordinary Wonder Tales was been listed in CBC Books and Toronto Life!

The CBC Books list, “20 Canadian books we can’t wait to read in November” was published on November 2, 2022. You can check it out here.

The Toronto Life list, “Sixteen things to see, do, read and hear in Toronto this November” was published on October 28, 2022. You can read the full list here.

Order your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

THE AFFIRMATIONS

Luke Hathaway‘s poem “As the part hanteth after the water brooks” from The Affirmations (April 5, 2022), won the Confederation Poets Prize by Arc Poetry. The prize winner was announced on October 27, 2022. You can read the full announcement here.

This year’s judge, Brecken Hancock, had this to say about the winning poem:

“In 12 incredibly short lines, Luke Hathaway has captured how we survive and thrive by chance, by lucky accident. These spare lines take the reader on a profound journey with the speaker who has gone “uphill to the well / where I went, as I thought // for my water” only to find an utterly new form of thirst and its remedy waiting there instead. A previously unrecognized, but life-threatening, form of dehydration is alleviated (in what feels like the nick of time) by the startling discovery of a source to quench it. Rather than dwell on what had previously been missing, a sorrowful lack, the poem ends in affirmation—communicating a resonant relief, and, beyond that, the joy and ecstasy that can finally be embodied and expressed when our deepest needs are recognized and met.”

Get your copy of The Affirmations here!

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Confessions with Keith by Pauline Holdstock (October 25, 2022), has been reviewed at Focus on Victoria on October 31, 2022. Read the whole review here.

Reviewer Amy Reiswig writes,

Confessions with Keith reminds us that life is a raw, radiant, and ridiculous story unfolding moment by moment for everyone in their separate subjectivities. It deserves laughter. It deserves tears. It is made more bearable by books like this, the literary equivalent of uncensored midnight conversation over cups of tea or glasses—plural—of wine. What Vita observes of festival street performers could well be said of reading Holdstock’s newest creation: ‘It was a shared experience of human life, a little bit of eternity together.'”

Confessions With Keith has also been reviewed at the BC Review. Read the whole review here.

Reviewer Candace Fertile writes,

“Things going wrong on many levels is the focus of the novel, but Vita’s ability to plough through the problems and often see the humour even when exhausted is refreshing … Confessions with Keith deals with real life issues in a frenetic and funny manner.”

Get your copy of Confessions with Keith here!

THIS TIME, THAT PLACE

This Time, That Place: Selected Stories by Clark Blaise (October 18, 2022) has been excerpted at Open Book. The excerpt is from the story “Translation” and was published Nov 1, 2022. You can read it here.

This Time, That Place also received a starred review at Quill & Quire. The review was published on November 2, 2022. Check out the whole review here.

Reviewer Steven W. Beattie writes,

“Blaise is … almost preternaturally adept at noticing things … sublime technique and linguistic finesse [are] showcased in these inestimable short works.”

Pick up your copy of This Time, That Place here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Michael Hingston, author of Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda (September 13, 2022), has been reviewed by MA Orthofer in The Complete Review. The article was published on October 30, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Orthofer writes,

Try Not to be Strange is an enjoyable account of a bizarre not-quite-real place, with a rich cast of characters—not least Hingston himself, who amusingly tracks his own obsessiveness.”

Michael Hingston has also been interviewed on Across the Pond podcast and New & Used podcast! Both episodes were published on November 1, 2022. You can listen to Across the Pond here, and New & Used here.

Get your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

Spotlight On: CANARY by NANCY JO CULLEN

The Biblioasis Spotlight Series is back! Our November pick is Nancy Jo Cullen‘s queer, weird, and brilliantly messed-up debut collection of short stories, Canary (April 16, 2013). Read on for a brief word from the author on the journey and growing joy of writing, and keep an eye out for an excerpt from the collection in our newsletter later this month!

CANARY

An ALA 2014 Over the Rainbow Selection • An Amazon.ca Best Book of 2013: Top 100/Editors’ Pick • A Vancouver Sun Favourite Read of 2013

What has to die before you force yourself to change? That’s the question facing the always quirky and often-queer characters of Canary. From the communal showers of a hot yoga studio to seedy pubs on Vancouver’s East Side, from Catholic merchandise salesmen to hitchhiking teenage lesbians, the people and places of Nancy Jo Cullen’s debut are asphyxiating slowly on ordinary life. Yet in this joint-smoking urban underground, we also glimpse the families, communities, friends and strangers from whom unexpected kindness comes as a breath of fresh air. Trashy but poignant, comic and profound, Canary hangs luminous above the coal-heap of fiction debuts—and proves Nancy Jo Cullen a writer of astonishing depths.

“Cullen’s prose is volcanic even when she’s describing the most domestic situations possible—the language is full of subterranean rumbles that simultaneously disturb and delight. The writing is always surprising, always bright, even in the most somber moments. Moving and funny, these stories will break your heart in the very best way.”
—Suzette Mayr, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of The Sleeping Car Porter

Nancy Jo Cullen’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The PuritanGrainfilling StationPlenitudePrairie FireArcThis MagazineBest Canadian Poetry 2018RoomThe Journey Prize and Best Canadian Fiction 2012. Nancy is the 2010 recipient for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ+ Emerging Writers. She’s published three collections of poetry with Frontenac House and a collection of short stories, Canary, with Biblioasis. Her first novel, The Western Alienation Merit Badge, was short-listed for the 2020 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Her fourth poetry collection, Nothing Will Save Your Life, is available now from Wolsak & Wynn.

Grab your copy of Canary here!

A WORD FROM NANCY JO CULLEN

The Biggest Joy in Writing

Photo Credit: Kristen Ritchie

I wrote the stories in Canary as my MFA thesis at the University of Guelph. My story “Ashes” came out of a writing assignment from a workshop with Michael Winter where he asked us to write something in the journalistic style of Norman Levine’s “In Lower Town.” That assignment allowed me to re-visit the eruption of Mount St. Helen’s; the fact that it turned out to be a big metaphor in the story was not something I realized until the story was written. I don’t generally plan when I’m writing (and yes, that means it takes longer, but the heart wants etc.) and I wrote most of the stories the way I write poetry; they grew from a phrase, feeling or image that I wanted to explore further. Writing my thesis was a glorious year of sitting in my room looking out over my Toronto street and down at the monks who came in and out of the Buddhist temple. I’d say to my kids, “I’m doing homework,” and they left me alone. Or maybe they understood I wouldn’t be policing their media consumption and jumped at the opportunity to be unsupervised.

After I wrote Canary I began work on a novel, The Western Alienation Merit Badge. Then, unexpectedly, found myself writing poetry again—something I swore I’d given up as I hadn’t felt the urge to write a poem for close to a decade. Those poems are now a collection titled, Nothing Will Save Your Life. During the pandemic, I thought I should write a fluffy novel and I’m still working my way through that; of course, I had the hubris to believe writing a fluffy novel would be easy. And now again, the siren call of short stories is strong. Notes are being made, and I’m coming to think maybe the biggest joy in writing is working on short pieces, poems and stories that allow me to explore small ideas in big ways and big ideas in small ways. My most recent note includes the words “vintage lesbian vest” and the many ways that turn of phrase may go.

BIG MEN FEAR ME, POWER OF STORY, QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL, CASE STUDY, TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE: Interviews and Reviews!

IN THE NEWS!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed by Nancy Wigston in the Toronto Star. The piece was published online on October 20, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Wigston writes:

“There are many threads to untangle here and Bourrie—journalist, academic, and lawyer—unpicks them all. Spanning the first half of 20th-century Ontario, [George] McCullagh’s life and times become an engrossing tale of ambition, politics and bipolar illness—it’s like little else we’re likely to read this year. … It was a tumultuous life, and Bourrie tells it with wit and humour.”

Mark Bourrie, author of Big Men Fear Me, was interviewed by Emily Donaldson for the Globe and Mail. The interview was published October 20, 2022. Read the full interview here.

Big Men Fear Me was also excerpted by the Globe and Mail. The excerpt was published online on October 25, 2022. You can read the full excerpt here.

Mark Bourrie was also interviewed by Steve Paikin on TVO – The Agenda. The interview aired on October 18, 2022. You can watch the full interview here.

Get your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has been excerpted in Lit Hub. The excerpt was published on October 24, 2022.

Read the full excerpt here.

Pick up your copy of The Power of Story here!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Querelle of Roberval (August 2, 2022) by Kevin Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler, was featured in an interview at CBC Books. You can read the whole interview here.

In the interview, Kevin writes,

Querelle of Roberval isn’t about hope or morality. I wanted to create a sensation of resistance, or an ecstatic reaction, versus a boring message about ‘we can change things if we all work together’ or anything like that. Also, I hope readers discover a part of Quebec that is not the one often presented in fiction.”

Get your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Michael Hingston, author of Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda (September 13, 2022), was interviewed by Naben Ruthnum for The Vancouver Writers Festival podcast. The episode was published on October 17, 2022.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab a copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed by Kassie Rose on WOSU. The review was published online on October 17, 2022. Listen to the full review here.

In the segment on All Sides Weekend: Books, Rose calls Case Study

“an interesting book ” with a “dry, witty sense of humor.”

Get your copy of Case Study here!

THE DAY-BREAKERS, CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES, TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE, POWER OF STORY, A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE: Media Hits!

IN THE NEWS!

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES 2022

Two of this year’s Christmas Ghost Stories from Seth (November 1, 2022), have been featured on the Christmas Past Podcast!

The episode featuring The Dead and the Countess by Gertrude Atherton aired on October 10, 2022, and can be listened to here.

The episode featuring The Corner Shop by Lady Cynthia Asquith aired on October 17, 2022 and can be heard here.

Grab a set of Christmas Ghost Stories 2022 here!

Check out the whole series here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022), has been reviewed by Susan Huebert in the Winnipeg Free Press. The article was published online on October 16, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Huebert writes,

“Hingston traces the story of one of the strangest kingdoms in the world … a fascinating account.”

Pick up your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has been excerpted in the Globe and Mail. The excerpt, “What story of colonialism do you want to believe in?” was published on October 15, 2022.

Read the full excerpt here.

Get your copy of The Power of Story here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) has been reviewed by Antanas Sileika on CBC’s The Next Chapter. The segment aired on October 15, 2022. Listen to the full segment here.

In the segment, Sileika says,

“I love this book … What he’s after is a kind of authenticity of human experience … He awakens in me that first understanding I had about books and literature when I was young … It was a wonderful read.”

Grab a copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

THE DAY-BREAKERS

The Day-Breakers by Michael Fraser (April 5, 2022) has been featured on CBC Books as part of “22 books by past CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists that came out in 2022.” The list was published online on October 17, 2022.

You can read the complete list here.

Get your copy of The Day-Breakers here!

Media Hits: QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL, BIG MEN FEAR ME, ON BROWSING, THE POWER OF STORY, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Querelle of Roberval (August 2, 2022) by Kevin Lambert translated by Donald Winkler was reviewed at the Globe and Mail. The review was published online on October 4, 2022. Read the whole review here.

Reviewer Ian McGillis writes,

“Lambert fully earns the company of his invoked forebears—Genet the teller of inconvenient truths, and the ancient Greeks, in whose work tragedy unfolds with the inexorability of a change in the seasons … Lambert’s prose, seamlessly rendered in English by Donald Winkler, meets all the demands of an ambitiously structured work. His default mode is a spare voice describing extreme things with a reined-in economy. But there are other feathers in his bow. With equal facility he can go full-on granular … or big-picture poetic, taking off on flights of numinous lyricism.”

Querelle of Roberval was reviewed by The Fiddlehead. The review was published online on October 7, 2022. You can read the whole review here.

Reviewer thom vernon writes,

“unabashedly thrusts and skewers its way to its end … Lambert’s Querelle of Roberval is far more than a titillating romp sniffing around the blades, bar stools, and crotches of beleaguered labour; it is a blistering hunt for a liberation that may never come.”

Querelle of Roberval was also reviewed by the Consumed by Ink blog on October 7, 2022! You can read the review here.

Reviewer Naomi McKinnon, who discusses Querelle alongside Lambert’s first novel, You Will Love What You Have Killed, writes,

“I recommend both of these books to those of you who dare … How to explain that something shocking and horrifying can also be good?”

Querelle of Roberval was featured on the podcast Getting Lit with Linda. The episode aired on October 7, 2022. You can listen to the whole episode here.

Reviewer Linda Morra says that Lambert is

“in possession of a prodigious talent … something of a cross between Stephen King and Alice Munro. If these two had a child-writer, they’d spawn Lambert. The grisly viciousness and the explicit gore of the former, and the psychological savvy, depth of motive, and ironic tone of the latter … I had trouble both putting the book down and continuing to read as only a truly horrifying and well-written book would compel a reader to do … A dextrous hand, laying bare human impulses and tracing the mysteries of persons, institutions, and larger stories of which they’re all a part.”

Pick up your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed by Shahina Piyarali in Shelf Awareness. Published online on October 3, 2022. Check out the review here.

Piyarali writes,

“Burnet’s deployment of multiple narrative structures, his finely tuned depiction of Braithwaite, and the fascinating revelations of the diarist result in an unforgettable story, one that will rattle readers long after its startling, disorientating ending.”

Grab your copy of Case Study here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed by John Ibbitson in the Globe and Mail. The review was published online on October 5, 2022. Read the full review here.

Ibbitson writes,

“Mark Bourrie has written a simply splendid book about George McCullagh, founding owner of The Globe and Mail, who dominated the worlds of politics and journalism in Ontario during the 1930s and 40s, but who has virtually been lost to memory. Bourrie’s book positively sings … [it] is thoroughly researched and the prose is clean and engaging … McCullagh deserves to be known … He made The Globe the dominant voice in English Canadian journalism. Bourrie’s biography does him full justice.”

Pick up your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart (November 1, 2022), has been reviewed by Joan Sullivan in The Telegram (SaltWire)! The review was published on October 7, 2022. Read the full review here.

Sullivan writes,

Ordinary Wonder Tales is so well-written, so full of enriching, unexpected connections, so captivating; a reader will be tempted to consume it in gulps, and then go back for seconds.”

Ordinary Wonder Tales was also reviewed in The Link! The review was published on October 12, 2022. Read the full review here.

Claire Helston-VanDuzer writes,

“Urquhart’s corrobation of legends to day-to-day life offers the same getaway and warmth that indulging in a supernatural world can. So, to all the retired fantasy lovers out there, please do yourself a favor and read this book … Ordinary Wonder Tales has opened my eyes to the ways that the mythical can allow opportunity for women to tell their own story in a forgiving environment. It has encouraged me to seek out other narratives that do the same.”

Order your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

THE POWER OF STORY

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by Harold R. Johnson (October 11, 2022) has been featured on CBC Books as one of their October reads. The list was published online on October 6, 2022. Check out the full list here.

CBC writes,

“In this posthumous work, Harold R. Johnson makes a case for how stories can shape and change our lives for the better if only we are willing to employ story as the world-building tool that it is.”

The Power of Story was featured in La Ronge Now. The article was published on October 11, 2022. Check out the full article here.

Derek Cornet writes,

“Harold illustrates how people can direct their potential to re-create and reform not only their own lives but the life everyone shares.”

The Power of Story has also been featured in The Saskatoon Star Phoenix. The article, which features an interview with Joan Johnson, was published on October 11, 2022. Check out the full article here.

Joan Johnson says, in the interview:

“Everything in The Power of Story is a culmination of Harold’s life, his experiences and his belief system.”

Pick up a copy of The Power of Story here!

ON BROWSING

On Browsing by Jason Guriel (October 4, 2022) has been reviewed at the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published Oct 7, 2022. You can read the whole article here.

Reviewer Chris Smith writes,

“Browsing is many things: a lifestyle, a relaxation, a revelation if your search finds a long-sought book or a rare recording, and perhaps more importantly a soul-refreshing excursion in a world of instant online search-and-buy options….Guriel, a lifelong browser, wrote this booklet of essays while detained at home during the COVID pandemic and reduced to scrolling, without access to his beloved physical media and the combined sensations of holding a book in your hand while your brain processes the value of the words within it.”

Jason Guriel, author of On Browsing, was interviewed with City News Toronto at The Big Story podcast. The episode is called “What do we lose when our malls disappear?” Listen to the whole interview here.

“Browsing,” Jason says, “is a kind of aimlessness that widens; it doesn’t narrow.” When asked how a person can experience that lost feeling of browsing, Jason recommends “leaving your phone at home and setting out for a walk. Arrange to be truly by yourself for a while.”

Grab a copy of On Browsing here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022) has been reviewed by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post. The article was published on October 6, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Dirda writes,

“It’s a wonderfully entertaining book, an account of how its Canadian author grew fascinated with a literary jape, a kind of role-playing game or shared-world fantasy involving some of the most eccentric and some of the most famous writers of modern times.”

Pick up a copy of Try Not the Be Strange here!

MUSIC, LATE AND SOON

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Robyn Sarah‘s Music, Late and Soon (August 24, 2021) has been reviewed at the Miramichi Reader. The review was published on October 13, 2022. You can read the rest of the review here.

Reviewer Michael Greenstein writes,

“Part sonata, part symphony, far more than a memoir, Music, Late and Soon introduces a number of memorable characters worthy of a novel, and an array of orchestral instruments that modulate the prose, melodies, and personalities surrounding the author’s life”

Grab you copy of Music, Late and Soon here!

CASE STUDY longlisted for the HWA Crown Awards!

We’re excited to share that Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been longlisted for the 2022 Historical Writers’ Association Golden Crown Award! The longlist was announced on September 28, 2022. Check out the official announcement, and full longlist here.

The HWA Golden Crown Awards celebrate the best historical writing, fiction and non-fiction, published in the UK and its ability to engage, illuminate, entertain and inform legions of readers.

The shortlist will be announced October 25, 2022, and winners announcement and awards ceremony will be on November 23, 2022.

Grab your copy of Case Study here!

ABOUT CASE STUDY

Shortlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize • Shortlisted for the 2022 Ned Kelly Awards • Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize • Longlisted for the 2022 HWA Gold Crown Award

The Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project blurs the lines between patient and therapist, fiction and documentation, and reality and dark imagination. 

London, 1965. ‘I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger,’ writes an anonymous patient, a young woman investigating her sister’s suicide. In the guise of a dynamic and troubled alter-ego named Rebecca Smyth, she makes an appointment with the notorious and roughly charismatic psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite, whom she believes is responsible for her sister’s death. But in this world of beguilement and bamboozlement, neither she nor we can be certain of anything.

Case Study is a novel as slippery as it is riveting, as playful as it is sinister, a meditation on truth, sanity, and the instability of identity by one of the most inventive novelists of our time.

ABOUT GRAEME MACRAE BURNET

Graeme Macrae Burnet is among Scotland’s leading contemporary novelists. Best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel, His Bloody Project (2015), he is also the author of two Simenon-influenced novels: The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014) and The Accident on the A35 (2017). Burnet has appeared at literary festivals in Australia, the USA, Germany, India, Russia, Spain, France, Korea, Denmark and Estonia. His novels have been translated into more than twenty languages and achieved bestseller status in several countries. He lives and works in Glasgow.

 

CASE STUDY, CONFESSION WITH KEITH, TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE and more: Reviews and Lists!

IN THE NEWS!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed in the Michigan Daily! The review was published online on September 21, 2022. Read the full review here.

Julian Wray writes,

Case Study reflects on relationships of power: the physical power of abusive men over women, the lingering power of memory over oneself. It reflects on the power of one’s wishes over one’s reality, the schism we create in ourselves when we resign to our present state and nothing more. Rebecca is a case study of what happens when desires run away on their own, such that a person is left to watch them go.”

Case Study has also received a starred review in Foreword Reviews! The review will be printed in their November/December issue. Check out the full review here.

An excerpt from the review:

“The fictional author and Burnet share the same initials, which should be a clue as to how close the book will come to breaking the fourth wall … The matryoshka-style layering of narratives, each dependent on the other, is engaging and disorienting. Case Study is an immersive novel that stretches its fiction to fact-like proportions.”

Order your copy of Case Study here!

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Confessions With Keith by Pauline Holdstock (September 20, 2022) was reviewed at the Winnipeg Free Press by Bev Sandell Greenberg! The article, “Domestic story of a dysfunctional delight” was published online on September 26, 2022. You can read the full article here.

Greenberg writes,

“Replete with sensory details, the four-part narrative consists of journals written in Vita’s voice in succinct, cheeky prose … The journals establish a sense of intimacy that endears us to Vita, but they also convey a level of tension palpable on every page … Holdstock’s fast-paced comic novel with its entertaining narrative will captivate readers, especially those who relish domestic tales.”

Confessions With Keith was reviewed in The Vancouver Sun by Brett Josef Grubisic! The article, “Holdstock extracts witty, painful glimpse into one woman’s revolving life” was published online on September 21, 2022. Read the full article here.

Grubisic writes,

“Magnetic … artfully expressed—funny, honest, wry, intimate—private thoughts … On page after assured page, Vita [is] confounded thrilled, irked, hurt, and envious—about minutia as well as the big picture—and all of which are facets of what she calls ‘the senselessness of human existence.'”

Get your copy of Confessions with Keith here!

ON BROWSING

On Browsing by Jason Guriel (October 8, 2022) has been excerpted in The Walrus. They’ve titled it “I Miss Being Bored at the Mall.”

You can read the whole excerpt here.

Grab your copy of On Browsing here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been included in the Quill & Quire Fall Books Preview published online on September 21, 2022. Check out the full list here.

Attila Berki writes,

“Mark Bourrie revives the life of George McCullagh—a charismatic high-school dropout, a self-made millionaire, the creator and owner of the Globe and Mail, and a man with great political potential—whose fall in the mid-20th century would be as steep as his rise to prominence.”

Order your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022) has been featured in the New York Times as part of their Newly Published column. The article was published on September 21, 2022. You can read the full article here.

The New York Times writes,

“This combination literary history, travelogue and cautionary tale tells the history of the formerly uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda and its development into a ‘micronation’ ruled by writers, beginning with the science fiction author M.P. Shiel in 1880.”

Try Not to Be Strange was also featured in Fine Books & Collections as one of their editor’s picks. The article was published online on September 16, 2022. You can read the full article here.

Fine Books & Collections writes,

“Combining travelogue, memoir, and literary history, Hingston has crafted a fascinating tale full of eccentric characters. Editions of all sizes play a role in the drama, and bibliophiles will also relish the author’s auction experience.”

Grab your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

THIS TIME, THAT PLACE

This Time, That Place by Clark Blaise (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed at Kirkus Reviews. The review will go live September 28, 2022.

The reviewer writes,

“These stories cover ground not only geographically. They are also crowded with character and incident, always fiercely and smartly observed … Blaise has gathered here a smart, sprawling collection of stories about family, rootlessness, and identity.”

Grab your copy of This Time, That Place here!