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Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, BURN MAN!

IN THE NEWS!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) received an outstanding review from Daniel Mason in the New York Times. The review was published online on March 3, 2024 and in print on March 10, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Mason writes:

“Comparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefánsson’s book, nor the uniqueness of his prose, rendered here in a tumblingly beautiful translation by Philip Roughton.”

Your Absence Is Darkness has also been reviewed in Asymptote, Under the Radar Magazine, and Winnipeg Free Press. The reviews were all published on March 11, 2024. It was also listed on Lit Hub, which highlighted the New York Times review, online on March 8, 2024.

In Asymptote, Kathryn Raver writes:

“A tale about life, death, and what we do with the time we are given in between the two . . . Stefánsson seeks to evoke is that the big picture isn’t for us to know, but something that is created, unknowingly, over the course of centuries.”

In Under the Radar, Frank Valish writes:

Your Absence Is Darkness will be one of the best books you read this year . . . [it] expounds on themes of life, death, love, loneliness, mistakes, and the search for meaning. The eternal themes. Those which the great novels elucidate carefully but spectacularly in unmatched prose. Which is exactly the kind of novel this is.”

In the Winnipeg Free Press, David Jón Fuller writes:

“The award-winning Icelandic author interweaves multigenerational stories often set in the country’s north and west . . . Stefánsson’s prose puts us right in the characters’ thoughts, feelings and sensations.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) was reviewed in Literary Review of Canada. The review was published on March 8, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Ruth Panofsky writes:

“This is a writer who possesses stylistic mastery and an ability to evoke character and incident using the barest of details. His are inimitable protagonists—wounded and nameless men with a gift for irony and humour—who inhabit haunting worlds.”

Burn Man was also reviewed in the Globe and Mail. The review was published on March 13, 2024, and can be read here.

Emily M. Keeler writes:

“Jarman’s stories on the whole feel less Catholic in the Roman sense and more Catholic in the Greek sense: his attentions are rangey, all-embracing, vitalized by the splendour both in ugly mundane violence and the febrile pulsations of longing, of something a bit like love.”

Get Burn Man here!

Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, THE FUTURE, THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2024) was featured on Michigan Public Radio. The feature was reported online on February 28, 2024. You can read (and listen!) to the MPR piece here.

Rachel Ishikawa and Olivia Mouradian write:

“The novel contends with histories of forced migration, poverty, and environmental degradation … [and] speak[s] more broadly to the ways cities will be forced to change in the face of climate change.”

The Future was also reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books on February 28, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Tim Niedermann writes:

“Leroux immerses the reader in these children’s world as they experience it … Trees and animals, wind and water speak to them in ways adults have forgotten…A paean to the wisdom that childhood possesses and the promise that it holds.”

Leroux read from The Future on CBC As It Happens on February 28, 2024. You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab your copy of The Future here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal! The review was published online on Mar 1, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Sam Sacks writes:

“Like fellow Scandinavian authors Jon Fosse and Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mr. Stefánsson joins plainspoken depictions of daily life to intimations of mysticism, creating a spectral, haunted atmosphere … Questioning, vulnerable and openly sentimental, this is an absorbing commemoration of what the author calls the paradox that rules our existence, the vivifying joy and paralyzing sorrow of loving another person.”

Your Absence Is Darkness featured by the Historical Novel Society as a forthcoming book to watch for. The article was published online on February 29, 2024.

You can read the full Historical Novel Society article here.

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024) was featured on Lit Hub as having one of the best book covers of February! Check out the full article here.

Get Love Novel here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) was reviewed in The Arts Fuse. The article was published online on March 1, 2024 and you can read the full review here.

Roberta Silman calls the book:

“[A] work of such depth and compassion that it was no surprise to learn that it was on the Long List for last year’s Booker prize … This is a book that should be read by every child and adult who is convinced he doesn’t ‘fit in.’ A book whose allusions and concerns broaden our view of the world.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall (Apr 4, 2023) has been reviewed in Commonweal Magazine. The article was published online on February 26, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

Jeff Reimer writes:

“Marshall does not set up her unbelief as a barrier to encounter. Rather, she allows herself to be addressed by the paintings. She opens herself to them … Marshall is as much seeker as skeptic.”

Get All Things Move here!

BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2024

The Best Canadian Poetry 2024 anthology (Nov 14, 2023) has been featured on CBC Victoria and in Victoria Buzz, in advance of the Victoria book launch. Both pieces were published on February 28, 2024. You can listen to the CBC interview feature here.

Get Best Canadian Poetry 2024 here!

Check out all three Best Canadian anthologies here!

Media Hits: THE ART OF LIBROMANCY, THE HOLLOW BEAST, BURN MAN, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was reviewed in Full Stop. The review was published online on February 18, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Rebecca Stuhr writes:

“In The Art of Libromancy, Josh Cook asks booksellers to live by their ideals. As a bookseller himself, at Porter Square Books in Massachusetts, he seeks to set an example for justice-based bookstores—justice for booksellers in their employment conditions, and justice as a motivation for bookselling.”

The Art of Libromancy was also featured in LitHub’s list of “Books for Indie Booksellers”, which was published online on February 23, 2024. You can read the full list here.

Rachel Conrad writes,

The Art of Libromancy is a candid and nuanced account of what it takes to be a part of an industry that faces a barrage of societal pressures and often finds itself at the forefront of social justice movements in a time where misinformation and fascism are on the rise.”

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, trans. Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in Midwest Book Review. The review was published online on February 18, 2024, and can be read here.

The review reads:

“A master of epic storytelling, The Hollow Beast is an inherently fascinating saga of a read from start to finish.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2024) was reviewed in Midwest Book Review. The review was published online on February 18, 2024, and you can check it out here.

The review reads:

“A truly revelatory selection highlights from one of the most spirited and singular contemporary masters of the short story format.”

Burn Man was also reviewed by Jeremy Thomas Gilmer in the Ampersand Review. The full review is available to read online here.

Gilmer writes,

“This collection brings [Jarman’s] fiercest prose, his most vital characters, and builds an architecture against which our troubled times can be thrashed. The music of broken men, splintered lives, and the salted souls left behind echo through the pages.”

Get your copy of Burn Man here!

STANDING HEAVY

Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 3, 2023) was reviewed by Marcie McCauley in Buried in Print. The review was published online on February 22, 2024, and can be read here.

McCauley writes,

Standing Heavy (in translation by Frank Wynne) reads quickly, even though it’s rich and complex. I’d intended to read just a couple of chapters, but I spent a snowy afternoon reading the whole book until it was finished … the style is vivid, the dialogue taut, and the presentation is clever.”

Get Standing Heavy here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

Ray Robertson, author of All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows (Nov 7, 2023) was interviewed by Lynn Saxberg in the Ottawa Citizen. The article was published online on February 20, 2024, and you can read the full interview here.

Saxberg calls the book:

“A fascinating chronicle of the band’s history told in a series of essays.”

Get All the Years Combine here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie (May 14, 2024) was featured in Quill & Quire’s Spring Preview. The article was published online on February 18, 2024, and you can check out the full preview here.

Attila Berki writes:

“Bourrie looks at how such early encounters between French colonists and missionaries and Indigenous Peoples continue to resonate in those same relationships.”

Preorder Crosses in the Sky here!

Media Hits: THE HOLLOW BEAST, THE FUTURE, LOVE NOVEL, THEY CALL ME GEORGE!

IN THE NEWS!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) has been reviewed in Foreword Reviews! The review was posted online on February 14, 2024 and can be read here.

Reviewer Isabella Zhou wrote,

“Mixing family history with local lore, the satirical novel The Hollow Beast is a tale of revenge and hauntings.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023), was reviewed by Andrew Hood on TheBookshelf! The review was published online on February 14, and can be read here.

Hood writes of the book,

“In The Future, old things are dying and new things are growing. That the new things come at the cost of the loss of the old can’t help but tint our feelings towards them. It’s this grey area that Leroux manages to break light through.”

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed alongside a review of The Future, in the McGill Daily! The feature was posted online on February 12, 2024. You can read and listen to the review and interview here.

Caley Fifield writes,

The Future is as factual as it is fictional, and the strength, creativity, and humour with which her characters weather each storm that comes their way are truly inspiring.”

Get The Future here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024), was featured in a ‘Book of the Day Roundup’ from Foreword Reviews! The roundup for the week of Feb 12-16 was posted online on February 15. Check out the full roundup here.

Love Novel was also reviewed by Tom Bowden in The Book Beat! The review was posted February 10, 2024. Read the full review here.

Bowden writes,

“Ivana Sajko’s narrative—rendered in English by Mima Simić with seeming effortlessness—is told in the third-person with an omniscience transparent enough to be led by the rhythms of each character’s thoughts and speech.”

Order Love Novel here!

THEY CALL ME GEORGE

They Call Me George by Cecil Foster was featured in All Lit Up‘s ‘Black History Month Series: Non-Fiction’ list! The list was posted on February 8, and you can check out the full article here.

Get They Call Me George here!

Media Hits: BURN MAN, THE FUTURE, LOVE NOVEL, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

Catherine Leroux, author of The Future (trans. by Susan Ouriou) (Sep 5, 2024) was interviewed alongside Heather O’Neill on CBC The Next Chapter by Ali Hassan, as part of their promotion of The Future for CBC Canada Reads, our nationwide literary competition. The interview aired on February 2, 204. You can listen to the full episode here.

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed for CBC Syndication which includes dozens of shows across the country. The interviews were conducted live on February 7, 2024. You can find links to all of her recent CBC interviews and features for Canada Reads here.

Get The Future here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal by Sam Sacks. The review was published online on February 8, 2024 and can be read here.

Fiction critic Sam Sacks writes:

“The stories in Burn Man, by the Canadian writer Mark Anthony Jarman, derive from the … raucous lineage of Barry Hannah, Thomas McGuane and Denis Johnson … He gives us a gallery of antiheroes—some of them bona fide criminals but many just screwups—who are helpless in the grip of their worst impulses.”

Get Burn Man here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024) was reviewed by Andrew Hood on The Bookshelf. The review was published online on February 5, 2024, and can be read in full here.

Hood writes:

“In its depiction of a contemporary relationship submitted to the meatgrinder of contemporary demands and expectations, Love Novel is unafraid and unsparing in its honesty.”

Love Novel was also listed in Library Journal as recommended by booksellers. The article was published online on February 5, 2024 and can be seen here.

Get Love Novel here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on February 2, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

The review reads:

“Quebecois writer Bernard debuts with a feverish burlesque about a one-time hockey player’s decades-long dispute with a referee and his grandson’s attempts to reverse the family curse … Bernard’s bawdiness and mania credibly evoke Thomas Pynchon’s flights of invention.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

Jason Guriel, author of The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles (Aug 1, 2023) has written a piece for The Millions, in which he discusses his journey from lyric poetry to a novel in verse. The article was published online on February 6, 2024. Check out the full essay here.

Grab The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was reviewed in the Chicago Tribune by John Warner as part of his “Top 5 Favorite Books About Bookstores.” The review was published online on January 27, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Warner calls the book:

“A treatise on the way commerce shapes what and how we read.”

Grab The Art of Libromancy here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move by Jeannie Marshall (Apr 4, 2023) has been featured in Canadian Architect. The review was published online on February 1, 2024. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Adele Weber writes:

All Things Move: Learning to Look at the Sistine Chapel … makes a unique case for considering the Chapel as something other than a religious enclave, scholarly artifact, or checklist tourist attraction. It’s all those, of course, but its otherworldly qualities transcend religious, academic, or tour-bus affiliations.”

Get All Things Move here!

Media Hits: BURN MAN, THE FUTURE, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2024), according to CBC Books is the #1 bestselling Canadian fiction title in Canada this week! You can view the full list here.

The Future was featured in the Windsor Star. The article was published on January 13, 2024, and you can read the full profile here.

Trevor Wilhelm writes:

“Dystopian novel The Future, published by Windsor’s Bibliosias, is in the running for a national competition to determine the one book to rule them all.”

Catherine Leroux, author of The Future, has been interviewed on CBC: Let’s Go. The interview aired on January 15, 2024. Listen to the full interview here.

Grab your copy of The Future here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) received an outstanding review in the New York Times! The review was published online on January 13, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Lincoln Michel writes:

“Anyone who enjoys poetry in prose, who feels enlivened by language and struck by sentences, will find much to admire in Burn Man. Jarman’s stories are full of violence, tragedy and mistakes. Yet there’s plenty of humor and heart too. […] Burn Man left me seeing a bit more beauty in our hurting-heart world.”

Burn Man was featured again in the New York Times by Greg Cowles as part of their Editor’s Choice column: “9 New Books We Recommend This Week.” The article was published online on January 25, 2024, and can be read here.

Cowles says, of Burn Man:

“The Canadian author Jarman may not be a familiar name in the United States just yet, but this anthology aims to fix that.”

Burn Man was reviewed by Andrew Hood on The Bookshelf’s website. The review was published online on January 19, 2024, and can be read here.

Hood writes:

“If I would compare Jarman to anyone other than himself, it would be to Tom Waits. Post-Kathleen Brennan Tom Waits. Yes, these are stories in the generic sense, just as a Tom Waits song is, technically, a song, but they are made of different things. For Waits, anything is percussive if you bang on it hard enough in the right place, and Jarman bashes language in the same way. The instrumentation in a Jarman story may sometimes sound conventional, but once isolated, sounds like nothing other than what it is. […] Reading Jarman is often, and I mean this in the best way possible, like drinking from a fire hose.”

Burn Man has also been excerpted in Lit Hub. The excerpt was published online on January 17, 2024—take a look here.

Get Burn Man here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (March 5, 2024)  is an Indie Next Pick for March and has also received an outstanding starred review in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on January 14, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Publishers Weekly writes:

“What makes this so irresistible is the narrator’s constant optimism as he probes profound questions from within the murk of his consciousness (“Give me darkness, and then I’ll know where the light is”). Stefánsson is poised to make his mark on the world stage.”

Order your copy of Your Absence is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić was featured on Kirkus Reviews as one of “20 Titles You Can Read in a Week.” The article was published online on January 24, 2024. Check out the full list here.

Order your copy of Love Novel here!

BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2024 & BEST CANADIAN ESSAYS 2024

Best Canadian Essays 2024 and Best Canadian Poetry 2024 (Nov 14, 2023) have been reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The article was published online on January 23, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Christina Barber writes of the anthologies:

“A testament to the importance of literature in Canada … it is a powerful body that celebrates the creative and literary spirit of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.”

Best Canadian Essays 2024 was also reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The article was published online on January 13, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

Susan Huebert writes:

“Each of the authors in Best Canadian Essays 2024 offers a particular style and perspective, but the essays work together to provide a picture of some of the issues Canadians have been facing. Many readers are likely to find something to interest them in this short collection of essays.”

Grab your copy of Essays here and Poetry here!

Check out all three Best Canadian anthologies here!

THE FUTURE shortlisted for CANADA READS 2024!

We’re thrilled to share that this morning, CBC announced the shortlist for Canada Reads 2024. The Future by Catherine Leroux (translated by Susan Ouriou) which was published by Biblioasis on September 5, 2023, will be championed by writer Heather O’Neill. The live debates will take place from March 4th to 7th, 2024. The theme of this year’s competition is hope. We are living in challenging times, and CBC Books has curated a list of books about, “finding the resilience and the hope needed to carry on and keep moving forward.”

Champion Heather O’Neill says The Future is an accomplished novel portraying,

“A dystopian world of feral children and corruption. Leroux describes it in an eerily beautiful and absolutely unique voice.”

Both Catherine Leroux and Heather O’Neill are natives of Montreal. In a Toronto Star feature story published today, Steven Beattie spoke to Leroux about her novel and to O’Neill about selecting The Future:

“As far as that rubric goes, Leroux’s book seems like a natural fit. With its overlapping themes of ecological decay, motherhood, childhood, and societal discord, The Future seemed to offer O’Neill a rich trove of subject matter to address—a significant consideration when she was musing about what book she wanted to champion. ‘You have to find a book that you can dig into and discuss for an entire week,’ O’Neill says. ‘There are just so many elements in The Future to talk about. I thought, this is going to be really fun.'”

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“We’re so pleased for Catherine, and grateful to Heather O’Neill for her enthusiasm for The Future! It’s a book for this moment: in a world that too often seems dystopic, it asks what comes after, where we’ll find our communities, pointing to ways we can live better together. We’re thankful as well to the CBC Books team, and that this program will bring so many new readers to Catherine’s wonderful work.”

This is the second of Biblioasis’ books to be nominated for CBC’s Canada Reads. The Dishwasher by Stéphane Larue (translated by Pablo Strauss) was nominated in 2020. Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario. Since 2004 we have published the best in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and literature in translation.

CBC’s Canada Reads premiered in 2002. The great Canadian book debate has been airing annually for more than twenty years and aims to select a winning book that all Canadians should read. Ali Hassan will host the 23rd competition, in which a panel of five celebrity advocates will champion Canadian books. Each day of the competition, one book will be eliminated by the panelists until a winner is declared the must-read book for Canadians in 2024. More information on the program and the selected titles is available at cbcbooks.ca.

Order your copy of The Future here!

ABOUT THE FUTURE

Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2024 • One of Tor.com’s Can’t Miss Speculative Fiction for Fall 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • One of Kirkus Reviews‘ Fall 2023 Big Books By Small Presses • A Kirkus Review Work of Translated Fiction To Read Now • One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023

In an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own kingdom in the trees.

In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their own kingdom in the trees and burned houses regenerate themselves. When Gloria arrives looking for answers and her missing granddaughters, at first she finds only a hungry mouse in the derelict home where her daughter was murdered. But the neighbours take pity on her and she turns to their resilience and impressive gardens for sustenance.

Photo Credit: Justine Latour

When a strange intuition sends Gloria into the woods of Parc Rouge, where the city’s orphaned and abandoned children are rumored to have created their own society, she can’t imagine the strength she will find. A richly imagined story of community and a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future, The Future is a lyrical testament to the power we hold to protect the people and places we love—together.

ABOUT CATHERINE LEROUX

Catherine Leroux is a Quebec novelist, translator and editor born in 1979. Her novel Le mur mitoyen won the France-Quebec Prize and its English version, The Party Wall, was nominated for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Future received the Jacques-Brossard award for speculative fiction and was nominated for the Quebec Booksellers Prize. Catherine also won the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for her translation of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. Two of her novels are currently being adapted for the screen. She lives in Montreal with her two children.

Photo Credit: Jaz Hart Studio Inc

ABOUT SUSAN OURIOU

Susan Ouriou is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation for which she has also been shortlisted on five other occasions. Many of her young adult translations have made the IBBY Honor List. She has also published two novels, Damselfish and Nathan, edited the anthologies Beyond Words—Translating the World and Languages of Our Land—Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec and contributed a one-act play to the upcoming anthology Many Mothers—Seven Skies. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Media Hits: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, ALL THE YEARS COMBINE, COCKTAIL, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT & INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DROWNING

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) and Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton (Apr 18, 2023) were both featured on the New Yorker‘s list of “The Best Books of 2023”! The article was posted online on December 20, 2023, and can be read here.

On Feeney:

“Feeney’s prose is beautifully crisp.”

On Heighton:

“These stories, by a Canadian novelist, poet, and musician who died last year, peer keenly into the penumbra surrounding death … Heighton’s stories wrestle with life’s uncontrollable endings and beginnings: birth, tragedy, failed resurrection. His characters grasp at time, even as it slips away—violent, sacred, apocalyptic, mundane.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

Get Instructions for the Drowning here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (Nov 14, 2023) has been reviewed in the Midwest Book Review! The review was published online on December 20, and can be read here.

Reviewer Michael Carson calls it:

“An inherently fascinating and engaging read from start to finish.”

Get Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows by Ray Robertson (Nov 7, 2023) was mentioned in SPIN Magazine. The article was posted online on December 20, 2023, and can be seen here.

SPIN writes,

“Ray Robertson … walks listeners through the endless thicket of music. At points, his crackling prose froths over into hyperventilating superfan’s rants—an approach that befits a band with such a passionate following. Sometimes … more is more.”

All the Years Combine was also reviewed in Palo Alto. The review was published online on December 21, 2023. Read the full review here.

Ashwini Gangal calls the book:

“Delightfully genre-fluid—part critique, part review, part biography, part journalism.”

Get your copy of All the Years Combine here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023) has been featured on CBC Books’ list of “55 books by past CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists that came out in 2023.” The article was published on December 19, 2023.

You read the full list here.

Grab your copy of Cocktail here!

DREAMING HOME

Lucian Childs, author of Dreaming Home (June 6, 2023), appeared on the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast to talk about exploring queer youth in literature. The episode was posted on December 16, 2023. Listen to the full episode here.

Grab your copy of Dreaming Home here!

BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2024

Best Canadian Poetry 2024 editor Bardia Sinaee wrote an article for the Literary Review of Canada on assembling the anthology. The article appeared online on December 22, 2023, and will appear in their January-February print issue. Read the full essay here.

Sinaee writes,

“When we give them our attention, great poems give us a lifetime of bracing, transcendent insight in a few lines; this is their offering. My offering to readers is a gathering of poems that delighted, startled, and challenged me. Poems that embrace ambiguity and risk. And poems that approach the uncertainty of the present moment with humility.”

Get your copy of Best Canadian Poetry 2024 here!

Get all three Best Canadian 2024 anthologies here!

Media Hits: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, ALL THE YEARS COMBINE, SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) has been reviewed by Sophie Ward in the New York Times! The review was published online on November 1, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Ward writes:

“Atmospheric … Feeney’s prose is both careful and relaxed—detailed in its description of place and character and of the effortful human urge to find order in the natural world; casual in its approach to storytelling.”

How to Build a Boat has also been reviewed in the Hindustan Times. The review was published online on October 31, 2023. You can read the full review here.

The Hindustan Times writes:

How to Build a Boat conjures images of rural Ireland and the Irish sea. It explores how motherhood shapes people in many ways … Fractured lives … come together beautifully in this novel that explores humanity, love, and grief.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (Nov 14, 2023) was reviewed in Quill & Quire. The review was published online on November 2, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Micheline Maylor writes:

“At times memoir, at times dissociative fable, at times personal essay … the writing maintains breath-close nearness to the perceptions of the narrator … This close-up experience of Barnes’s psychosis is akin to being in a diving bell with the storyteller, extremely intimate and viscerally suffocating … culminat(ing) in a feeling of waking from a vivid dream not quite remembered.”

Get Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows by Ray Robertson (Nov 7, 2023), was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on October 30, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Douglas Johnston writes:

“It’s hard to convey the magic of the Dead’s music in words … Robertson … succeeds.”

Ray Robertson was interviewed on Border City Rock Talk. The interview was posted online on October 31, 2023. Listen to the full interview here.

All the Years Combine was also reviewed in Louder Than War. The review was  published online on November 1, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Craig Campbell writes:

“This collection celebrating fifty concerts by the Grateful Dead shows them to be tougher and more complex than you might think … meticulous readings of the bands concerts (alongside track listings) are impressively extensive but crucially they also build a surprising picture too.”

Get All the Years Combine here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES: THE CAPTAIN OF THE POLESTAR

The Captain of the Polestar by Arthur Conan Doyle, illust. by Seth (Oct 31, 2023) was featured on the Christmas Past Podcast! Host Brian Earl did a reading of the story, from our 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories series, in an episode posted on October 31, 2023. You can listen to the episode here.

Get The Captain of the Polestar here!

Get all three 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

ON WRITING AND FAILURE

On Writing and Failure by Stephen Marche (Feb 14, 2023) was reviewed in The New Statesman. The review was published online on November 2, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Barney Horner writes:

“Marche’s purpose is not to discourage young tyros from taking up the pen but to inform them—via repeated commands of “no whining”—that writing is not the path to success, riches or even, often, respect; writers write in spite of failure.”

Get On Writing and Failure here!

Check out the rest of the Field Notes series here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

Jeannie Marshall, author of All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel (Apr 4, 2023), was interviewed on Art Curious Podcast. The episode was published online on October 30, 2023. You can listen to the episode here.

Get All Things Move here!

News & Awards: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, ON COMMUNITY, FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (August 1, 2023) has been reviewed in the Toronto Star by Michael Coren. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Michael Coren writes,

“[T]he book that’s going to get under your skin this summer … dizzyingly interesting … there is something utterly new and exciting here.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has also been reviewed in Booklist. The review was published online on July 28, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Sal A. Joyce calls it:

“A story with heart, intrigue, and mystery … Lovers of science fiction will find this unlike anything they’ve read before.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has been featured in Lit Hub and Book Riot. Both articles were published on August 1, 2023.

Read Lit Hub’s “27 New Books Out Today” list here and Book Riot’s “New Releases” list here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (November 7, 2023) has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023! The longlist was announced this morning, August 1, 2023. You can read the full announcement here.

The Booker jury writes:

“The interweaving stories of Jamie, a teenage boy trying to make sense of the world, and Tess, a teacher at his school, make up this humorous and insightful novel about family and the need for connection. Feeney has written an absorbing coming-of-age story which also explores the restrictions of class and education in a small community. A complex and genuinely moving novel.”

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney was also reviewed in the Irish Times and RTE Ireland. Both articles were published online on July 22, 2023.

Irish Times calls it a “beautiful meditation on love,” while RTE Ireland calls it a “beautifully-written, tenderhearted story.”

Order How to Build a Boat here!

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (November 7, 2023) has been featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Nonfiction Preview. The article was published online on August 2, 2023.

You can read the preview here.

Order On Community here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (September 12, 2023) has been reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Lucy Black writes,

“This collection of twelve pristine short stories might best be described as small snapshots of lives shadowed by disquietude. The writing is crisp, accomplished and assured, and the characters are vividly and sympathetically drawn, as they experience the emotional convolutions of individuals struggling between that which they believe to be right and that which they desire.”

Order Cocktail here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (August 22, 2023) has been featured in the Chicago Review of Books as one of their “12 Must Read Books of August.” The article was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Michael Welch calls it

“A necessarily critical look at the practice of connecting readers with their next book in the age of monopolization and censorship.”

Order The Art of Libromancy here!

THE COUNTRY OF TOO

The Country of Toó by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Stephen Henighan (July 11, 2023) has been reviewed in The Complete Review. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

MA Orthofer calls it

“An appealing panorama of both the country and the different cultures and forces—from Mayan to global-capitalist—at work in it.”

Get The Country of Toó here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY & OFF THE RECORD

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (November 7, 2023) and Off the Record edited by John Metcalf (November 14, 2023) were both featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Preview: Poetry, Memoir, and Biography. The article was published online on July 26, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Order Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

Order Off the Record here!