News and Reviews: Highlighting Biblioasis Titles!
IN THE NEWS!
THINGS ARE AGAINST US
Lucy Ellmann’s Things Are Against Us (September 28, 2021) received a rave review in The Observer! The review was published in their print issue on June 27, and online on June 28. You can read it on their website here.
Reviewer Hephzibah Anderson wrote:
“Funny and furious … Aimed at everything from air travel to zips, genre writing to men (above all, men), her ire is matched only by an irrepressible comic impulse, from which bubbles forth kitsch puns, wisecracking whimsy and one-liners both bawdy and venomous … You don’t have to agree with everything Ellmann says to find this supple, provocative volume invigorating. Indeed, part of its craftiness lies in keeping the reader guessing about precisely how seriously she takes herself … A manifesto worth getting behind. On second thoughts, better make it a womanifesto.”
Preorder your copy from Biblioasis here!
DANTE’S INDIANA
Randy Boyagoda’s Dante’s Indiana (September 7, 2021) received a positive review from Kirkus Reviews! The review was published online on June 29, 2021, and it will appear in their July 15, 2021 print issue. You can read it on their website here.
Kirkus wrote,
“Boyagoda keeps things moving quickly and imaginatively. He skewers hosts of sinners along the way, but the wit has a winsome empathy behind it. A rollicking, inventive, mostly successful satire—with a vein of seriousness and sadness underneath.”
Preorder your copy today from Biblioasis here!
100 MILES OF BASEBALL
Dale Jacobs & Heidi LM Jacobs were interviewed by Steve Paikin on TVO’s The Agenda about their new book 100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer! The interview aired on June 15, 2021, and you can watch it on their website here.
On June 16, 2021, CBC Books included 100 Miles of Baseball in their list “24 Canadian books to get your dad for Father’s Day”. You can check out the list on their website here.
Also, Dale Jacobs & Heidi LM Jacobs were interviewed by the Pandemic Baseball Bookclub. Heidi & Dale were joined in conversation by Andrew Forbes, author of The Only Way is the Steady Way. The interview was posted on June 16, 2021. You can watch it on their YouTube channel here.
Andrew Forbes wrote,
“In 100 Miles of Baseball, authors Heidi L.M. Jacobs and Dale Jacobs create a series of beautiful, heartfelt and carefully considered meditations on baseball’s myriad pleasures and meanings.”
Buy 100 Miles of Baseball from Biblioasis here!
DRIVEN
The Coast published an excerpt from Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers highlighting Halifax driver, Michael Kamara’s story on June 16, 2021. The excerpt was published in the print issue and is available on their website here.
Editor Morgan Mullin wrote,
“When you’re in a cab, looking at the back of the driver’s head, do you think about who they are? Not just their job—to get you from Point A to Point B—but their life and dreams? Probably not, the same way you don’t think about what your cashier had for breakfast. But Marcello Di Cintio does think of these things—enough that he wrote a book about cabbies, built on endless hours of interviews that construct the backstory of drivers from across the country.”
On June 18, 2021, the CBC’s Day 6 included Marcello Di Cintio’s Driven on their summer reading list! Book columnist Becky Toyne discussed Driven on the show, featuring it as one of the four titles she recommends. You can listen to the segment here.
Also on June 18, 2021, the Montreal Gazette included Driven in their list of “Time to revive an old habit: seven books to take out and about this summer”. You can check out the list on their website here.
Reviewer Ian McGillis wrote,
“In Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers, Marcello Di Cintio takes the time and trouble to engage with a cross-Canada range of people representing a profession too often taken for granted. Most of them are immigrants; all of them are subject to scarcely conceivable challenges and obstacles, often exacerbated by the onset of Uber.”
Marcello Di Cintio’s Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers received a positive review in the Winnipeg Free Press! The review was published on June 26, 2021. You can read the review on their website here.
Reviewer Gordon Arnold wrote:
“Driven is a collection of short essays laying out the backstory for an eclectic array of immigrant cabbies … All of the characters are driven by an incredible work ethic, where 17-hour days are not uncommon … If you have spent any time at all in cabs, chances are you will have met some of the character types in this easy-reading collection.”
Marcello Di Cintio was also interviewed on the video & audio podcast Sweater Weather. Marcello spoke to writer Aaron Giovannone, and the episode aired on June 26, 2021. You can watch it on the YouTube channel here.
Marcello Di Cintio was interviewed on another podcast, Canada Reads American Style. He was interviewed by the two hosts, Rebecca Higgerson and Shauna Quick, and the episode aired on June 28, 2021. You can listen to the episode here.
Order your copy of Driven here!
LUCIA
The Globe & Mail included Alex Pheby’s Lucia (June 15, 2021) in the Summer 2021 Books Preview! The list was published online on Friday, June 18, 2021, and was also in their print issue on the weekend. You can read it on their website here.
Reviewer Emily Donaldson praised Lucia:
“An air of mystery has always clung to Lucia Joyce—daughter of writer James, dancer and lover of, among others, Samuel Beckett and Alexander Calder … In an original, bravura turn, British novelist Alex Pheby tells Lucia’s story from the perspective of the various men around her (spoiler alert: none come off well).”
Buy Lucia today from Biblioasis here!
A GHOST IN THE THROAT
Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat (June 1, 2021) received a rave review from the Chicago Review of Books! The review was published on June 25, 2021. You can read it on their website here.
Reviewer Shazia Hafiz Ramji wrote:
“A detailed tapestry that threads Eibhlín Dubh’s family histories with the author’s own translations of her poem from the Irish, Ní Ghríofa’s essayistic and intimate style recalls the inter-disciplinary perambulations of W.G. Sebald and the uncompromising feminism of Maggie Nelson … A Ghost in the Throat is a kaleidoscopic book of ‘homemaking’ that centers the intuitive knowledge of the body in order to learn to live—again, again, and again.
Also, A Ghost in the Throat was included by Buzzfeed Books as one of “58 Great Books to Read This Summer, Recommended by Our Favourite Indie Booksellers”! The listed was posted on June 24, 2021. Check it out here.
James Crossley at Madison Books wrote:
“Many writers have used classic literary works as a lens for examining their own lives, but none have ever given me the visceral thrill that Doireann Ní Ghríofa has. She doesn’t meditate on a mysterious 18th-century Irish lament; she wrestles with it, turning it over and over to reveal myriad intimate connections to modern motherhood and marriage. To read A Ghost in the Throat is to hold in your hands a living, beating heart.”
Finally, A Ghost in the Throat was listed by Page One as a New & Noteworthy title in their July/August 2021 issue. It will be available in print, and you can check out the list on their website here.
Get your copy of A Ghost in the Throat from Biblioasis here!
