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

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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: ALL THE YEARS COMBINE, BURN MAN, CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES, and more!

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IN THE NEWS!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Mike Barnes, author of Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country (Nov 14, 2023), was interviewed in Open Book. The interview was posted on December 5, 2023 and can be read here.

Open Book writes,

“Mike Barnes is one of those rare writers who can do it all—in poetry, short fiction, novels, and memoir, he takes readers on nuanced, brainy, powerfully moving journeys. Fiercely intelligent yet consistently accessible and relatable, Barnes has a unique perspective informed by a deep empathy gained through his own difficult and complex experiences with mental health and grief.

His latest book, Sleep is Now a Foreign Country (Biblioasis), is a deeply personal, thoughtful, unflinching exploration of madness and imagination.”

Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country was (rave!) reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published online on November 23, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Brian Bethune writes:

“For all the ways Barnes’s book is indescribable, this much is true—it is a thing of beauty and courage.”

Get Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

Ray Robertson, author of All the Years Combine (Nov 7, 2023) has been interviewed on Bookin’ podcast, hosted by Explore Booksellers’ Jason Jeffries. The episode aired on December 4, 2023. You can listen to it here.

All the Years Combine was reviewed in Anti Music as part of their holiday gift guide for 2023. The article was published online on November 22, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Kevin Wierzbicki writes:

“All the Years Combine is a fast, enlightening read but it is also something to savor, like one of the Dead’s notorious hour-long jams.”

All the Years Combine was reviewed in The Ultimate Guitar. The review was published on November 27, 2023, and you can read it in full here.

Greg Prado writes,

“Author Ray Robertson … put[s] it all in perspective.”

Ray Robertson was interviewed in Roots Music Canada, which was published on December 1, 2023 and can be read here.

Jason Schneider writes,

“One of Canada’s most prolific writers … one thing that’s always made Ray’s work stand out is how he seamlessly blends his favourite music into his prose, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.”

Get All the Years Combine here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, trans. by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) was featured by CBC Books as one of their “Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 5, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get The Future here!

ON COMMUNITY

Casey Plett, author of On Community (Nov 7, 2023), was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter and in the Globe and Mail. Both interviews were published online on December 1, 2023. You can listen to the full episode of The Next Chapter here. You read the full Globe and Mail interview here.

On Community was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on November 18, 2023. You can read the review here.

Matt Henderson writes:

“Plett ruminates on the importance of community in succinct, snappy prose.”

On Community was featured on The Tyee’s 2023 top reads for the holidays. The article was published online on December 1, 2023, and can be read here.

Casey Plett was also interviewed on “The Maris Review,” Lit Hub’s podcast hosted by Maris Kreizman. The episode was published on November 30, 2023, and you can listen to the interview here.

Get On Community here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES 2023

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 31, 2023) have all been featured in the Chicago Tribune’s holiday gift guide which was published on November 30, 2023, as well as the Toronto Star‘s holiday gift guide which was published November 24, 2023. You can read the Chicago Tribune list here and the Toronto Star here.

Christopher Borelli (Chicago Tribune) writes:

“For the past several years Canadian publisher Biblioasis has revived the tradition, one thin, tiny book at a time (illustrated by minimalistic, idiosyncratic cartoonist Seth). They’ve revived ghosts by Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens and others. The newest installment … includes “The Captain of the Polestar,” a polar fright by Arthur Conan Doyle. What is, after all, “A Christmas Carol” but a ghost story, handed down, every holiday?”

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories were also reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada! The reviews of The Captain of the Polestar, The House by the Poppy Field, and A Room in a Rectory were published in their December print issue.

The three reviews write:

“The House by the Poppy Field is a spare and chilling tale that’s as much psychological as it is spectral. A perfectly sized collectible with Seth’s signature illustrations throughout, this latest edition would make for a fine stocking stuffer. Just don’t wait until Christmas morning to open it.”

“Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Captain of the Polestar (Biblioasis) is full of foreboding, with whispers of both Coleridge and Melville. In this edition, Seth complements the artful story from 1883 with bold and evocative imagery that  transports readers to the haunting scene.”

“Caldecott’s A Room in a Rectory … may well spook those who gather on Christmas Eve … Ultimately, the author’s and the illustrator’s treatments of ‘the obscene and macabre’ make for a lot of fun.”

Get all three 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the rest of the series here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) has been reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published online on November 30, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Sara Harms writes:

“One doesn’t read a Mark Anthony Jarman story so much as one experiences it … These 21 stories in Burn Man selected by the author himself, are not ordered chronologically but rather the way a musician might sequence tracks on an album, paying careful attention to modulations in tempo and rhythm and how individual pieces play against one another.”

Get Burn Man here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (November 7, 2023) has been listed in Lit Hub as one of the “10 Best Book Covers of November,” and on Bookmarks as one of “The Best Reviewed Books of the Month.” Both articles were published online on November 30, 2023.

You can read the Bookmarks article here, and Lit Hub here!

How to Build a Boat was also reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on November 20, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Malcolm Forbes calls it:

“A wonderful book that earned its rightful place on this year’s Booker Prize longlist.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Don Gillmor, author of Breaking and Entering (August 15, 2023) was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter on November 25, 2023, and All Write in Sin City on November 26, 2023.

You can listen to CBC Next Chapter here, You can listen to All Write in Sin City here.

Get Breaking and Entering here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sept 12 2023), was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada for their December print issue. It was also featured as one of The Miramichi Reader’s “Best Books of 2023.” Both the review and the list were published online on November 20, 2023. You can read the full LRC review here and The Miramichi Reader‘s list here.

Emily Latimer writes, in the LRC,

“Throughout Lisa Alward’s debut story collection, deceptively unassuming items … prompt a diverse cast of characters to reflect on events that have changed their lives … Alward’s sure-footed writing ably steers readers through stories about injuries, marriages, new parenthood, and other watershed moments.”

Cocktail was also featured on The Tyee’s 2023 top reads for the holidays. The article was published online on December 1, 2023 and can be read here.

Get Cocktail here!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DROWNING

Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton (Apr 18 2023) was featured by CBC Books as one of their “Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 5, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get Instructions for the Drowning here!

Spotlight On: HOW TO DIE by RAY ROBERTSON

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The Biblioasis Spotlight Series returns for another year! Kicking off 2023 is our January pick, Ray Robertson‘s philosophical and surprisingly heartfelt How to Die: A Book About Being Alive (Jan 28, 2020). Enjoy a brief note from the author on the themes of mortality in his works, and don’t miss an excerpt from the book in our newsletter later this month!

HOW TO DIE: A BOOK ABOUT BEING ALIVE

“He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.”—Montaigne

In How to Die: A Book About Being Alive, Ray Robertson meets Montaigne’s challenge, arguing with characteristic candour and wit that if we gain a clearer understanding of death, we’ll also better understand life. Contending that human beings tend to prefer illusion to reality—and so readily flock to the consoling myths of philosophy, religion, and society—Robertson echoes Publius Syrus, the first-century Roman who claimed, “They live ill who expect to live always.”

An absorbing excursion through some of Western literature’s most compelling works on the subject of mortality, How to Die: A Book About Being Alive is an anecdotally-laden appeal for cultivating an honest relationship with death in the belief that, if we do so, we’ll know more about what gives meaning to our lives. Pondering death isn’t morbid or frivolous, Robertson argues—not unless we believe that asking what makes for a meaningful life is as well.

“While How to Die is a slim book, it offers some hefty insights, leavened with frequent, self-effacing humour. There are numerous passages here which, while quick to read (the book is very accessible, despite its philosophical bona fides), nonetheless take hours to fully internalize … Brilliant.”
—Toronto Star

Ray Robertson is the author of nine novels, four collections of non-fiction, and a book of poetry. His work has been translated into several languages. Born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, he lives in Toronto.

Grab your copy of How to Die here!

Check out Ray Robertson’s other books here!

A WORD FROM RAY ROBERTSON

Writing and Mortality

Ray Robertson

Writers are often the least likely to know what their own books are about. Or, if they’ve written a bunch of them, what the relationship between them is. That’s not their job—their job is to create worlds, not to analyze or explain them. It was during a conversation with Dan Wells, Biblioasis’ publisher, that I came to appreciate the elemental role mortality has played in my last several books. We were discussing my novel Estates Large and Small, which came out last year and a couple of years after How to Die: A Book About Being Alive, and Dan said something I hadn’t thought of before: among other things, Estates Large and Small was a fictional continuation of the exploration of death I’d embarked upon in the previous, non-fiction book. Basically, I wasn’t done with the topic, even though I thought I was.

I’ve never chosen a subject for a non-fiction book or a theme for a novel—writers don’t pick their obsessions, they pick them—and I’m always pleased when the book I’m working on insists upon going this way or that. I trust my books more than I do me. Estates Large and Small is about a second-hand bookseller who’s forced to shut down his brick-and-mortar bookstore and adapt to a brave new world of e-commerce, but it’s also about death: the death of a way of life, yes, but also about the ephemerality of all things, including ourselves and those we love. As in How to Die: A Book About Being Alive, I believe that contemplating death isn’t morbid or empty navel-gazing, but is a way to reflect upon life, and what death can teach us about living a better, more fulfilled existence. One of the two epigraphs I used for How to Die: A Book About Being Alive is an excerpt from Philip Larkin’s poem “Days,” and, as poets often do, Larkin encapsulates this big idea in the shortest of spaces:

What are days for?
Day are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

This year Biblioasis will publish All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows, another non-fiction book. It’s about a rock and roll band and what makes their music, and particularly their concerts, so unique. A rock and roll band called the Grateful Dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s about more than that.

IN THE MEDIA: Ray Robertson

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“A Vintage Treat”

Ray Robertson’s 1979, a novel about a Chatham paperboy who comes back from the dead, continues reminding readers how old they are recapturing the halcyon days of youth. The Winnipeg Free Press writes, “As Robertson traces Tom’s coming of age, he explores themes of innocence lost, wisdom gained and learning to forgive … [Robertson’s] talent as a writer shows in his clear prose and ability to create unique and believable characters.”

Loan Stars Love

Loan Stars has named 1979 a March Top Pick. Andrea Yarrow of the Ottawa Public Library calls the novel “One to watch for . . . [a] sweetly nostalgic coming-of-age story about Tom’s developing interest in girls, his understanding of his parent’s divorce, and his discovery of various rock bands . . . . What makes this story a true gem however, is how Tom’s narrative is interspersed with a glimpse into the very private lives of his neighbours, including the people whose papers he delivers, and those whose paths cross his for other reasons.” Congrats, Ray: you’re librarian-approved.

On the Road

Ray kicked off his Southern Ontario tour last night at Toronto’s Monarch Tavern. We’re told the apple juice was wholesome and delicious. Here at home, we’re readying the Bibliomanse for Ray’s Windsor launch, and you’re invited. We cleaned and everything! Come join us in tomorrow, March 22nd, at 7:30 PM, at Biblioasis Bookstore (1520 Wyandotte St E). Disclaimer: no pumpkins will be smashed.

Chatham friends, you can catch Ray on Friday, March 23rd, at 7 PM at The Book Brothers (25 King St E).