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THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published in their September print issue.

The LRC writes,

“Sorry About the Fire introduces readers to an intrepid thinker and original writer who seems to relish nature as much as her Irish, French, and Odawa heritage. If Collins can teach readers just one thing, surely it’s a sense of surprise, so that we too might say, ‘I’m up in my head / tread, tread, tread, tread, / and you can’t hold a candle to this.'”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

BURN MAN

Mark Anthony Jarman, author of Burn Man: Selected Stories (Nov 21 2023), was interviewed on the podcast Craftwork. The episode aired on August 8, and you can listen to the conversation in full here.

Grab Burn Man here!

ON CLASS

Deborah Dundas, author of On Class (May 9, 2023), was interviewed by Nathan Whitlock on the podcast What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books. The episode aired on August 19, and you can listen to it here.

Grab On Class here!

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (Aug 1, 2023) appeared in 49th Shelf‘s list “Astonish and Renew: Books With a Sense of Play.” The list was posted on August 22, and you can check it out here.

Rod Moody-Corbett calls it:

“[A] brilliant second novel . . . expansive and epic and intellectually enduring.”

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

Check out the companion novel, Forgotten Work, here!

Media Hits: HELLO HORSE, THE UTOPIAN GENERATION, ON COMMUNITY, and more!

June 14, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

HELLO HORSE

Hello, Horse by Richard Kelly Kemick (Aug 6, 2024) was highlighted in the Globe and Mail‘s list of “Thirty-four books to read this summer.” The article was published online on June 13, and you can check it out here.

Critic Emily Donaldson writes,

“The animal world interacts with the human one in confounding and sometimes wondrous ways in Kemick’s first collection, which abounds with the poet’s sideways, observational writing.”

Hello, Horse was also featured in BC Bookworld! The review was published in their Summer 2024 print issue, and is available to view online here.

BC Bookworld writes,

“Part of the joy of a collection of short stories is the surprising range of characters and situations that can spring from an author’s imagination. Richard Kelly Kemick’s debut collection of character-driven stories, Hello, Horse, range from the humorous to the bizarre.”

Order Hello, Horse here!

THE UTOPIAN GENERATION

The Utopian Generation by Pepetela, translated by David Brookshaw (Aug 13, 2024), was highlighted in the Globe and Mail‘s list of “Thirty-four books to read this summer.” The article was published online on June 13, and you can check it out here.

Critic Emily Donaldson writes,

“First published in Portuguese in 1992, this decades-spanning anti-colonialist novel from the early sixties by Angola’s most prominent writer (real name: Artur Pestana dos Santos) involves a group of students in Lisbon who, faced with the prospect of being conscripted to suppress a political uprising in their native land, end up (like Pepetela himself did) as guerilla fighters in Angola’s brutal 14-year war.”

Order The Utopian Generation here!

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire (Apr 2, 2024), was interviewed on the All Write in Sin City podcast! The interview was posted online on June 9, and is available to listen to in full here.

Grab Sorry About the Fire here!

BEST CANADIAN SERIES 2024

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024), was reviewed in The /tƐmz/ Review! The review was published online on June 10, and you can read it here.

Reviewer Marcie McCauley writes,

“Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s writing is steeped in love and loss; his stories are sorrow-soaked, the kind that linger.”

Grab Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024), was reviewed in The /tƐmz/ Review! The review was published online on June 10, and you can read it in full here.

Reviewer Alex Carrigan writes,

“The true love story in this novel is the love between the reader and the characters, asking the reader to sympathize with the flawed, struggling characters and to empathize with how easy it is to fall into cynicism and to forget the joy in life . . . Sajko’s novel can remind you that some relationships are too interwoven to be truly cut apart, and it’s in finding how they’re tied together that one will remember to persist regardless.”

Get Love Novel here!

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (Nov 7, 2023) was feature in CBC Books’ list of “25 books for Pride Month.” The list was posted online on June 14, and is available to check out here.

CBC Books writes,

“Plett uses her firsthand experiences to eventually reach a cumulative definition of community and explore how we form bonds with one another.”

Get On Community here!

The Best Canadian 2024 Series launch, part of TIFA’s Toronto Lit Up programme, was highlighted on their YouTube channel! The short video was posted on June 12, and you can watch it here.

Get Best Canadian Essays 2024 here!

Get Best Canadian Poetry 2024 here!

Get Best Canadian Stories 2024 here!

Get all three Best Canadian anthologies here!

Media Hits: WORK TO BE DONE, EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, CROSSES IN THE SKY, and more!

May 17, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

Work to Be Done: Selected Essays and Reviews by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on May 15, and you can read it in full here.

Reviewer John Oughton writes,

“Whiteman is an erudite and very well-read lover of books in general, and literature in particular. He brings a finely honed critical perspective, a fine prose style of his own, and a sturdy sense of humour to the various essays and reviews collected here. “

Work to Be Done was also reviewed by Catherine Owen in FreeFall! The review was published online on May 13, and you can check out the full review here.

Catherine praises,

“Whiteman’s scholarship is prodigious and his style engaging as he addresses subjects that might be viewed as archaic or passé in a unique way, his tone intelligently conversational, quirky and eminently readable . . . His attention to the crucial choice of diction for translators and the essential sensitivity to sonority for the poet is relentlessly compelling. And he can be quite funny.”

Get Work to Be Done here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia by Mark Bourrie (May 21, 2024) was featured in the Toronto Star! The review was published online on May 15, and you can read it here.

Reviewer Ken McGoogan writes,

“In 2019, Mark Bourrie published Bush Runner, a biography of the adventurer Pierre-Esprit Radisson that was ‘compelling, authoritative, not a little disturbing—and a significant contribution to the history of 17th-century North America,’ as I wrote at the time. The same can be said about Bourrie’s latest, Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia . . . In reinterpreting the Jesuit’s martyrdom against the backdrop of Huronia’s destruction, Bourrie presents a revisionist history.”

Mark Bourrie was also interviewed about the book on The Andrew Carter Morning Show! The interview was posted online on May 17, and is available to listen to here.

Order Crosses in the Sky here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada alongside the first book in the Aubrey McKee Novels, Aubrey McKee! The review was published online on May 17, and will be printed in their June 2024 issue. You can read the full review here.

Reviewer Liam Rockall raves,

“Bold and dynamic, Pugsley’s novels are lively and vivid, filled with individuals who are benevolent and cruel and with scenes that are captivating and terrifying. Aubrey McKee and The Education of Aubrey McKee are the first two acts of a sweeping personal drama, and any remaining volumes cannot come fast enough.”

Alex Pugsley was interviewed about The Education of Aubrey McKee, on CBC Main Street NS with Jeff Douglas! The interview was posted online on May 14, and you can give it a listen here.

Grab The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes was featured in articles from Windsor News Today and The Windsor Star about its Trillium Award nomination! The Windsor News Today article was posted online on May 11, and can be read in full here, and The Windsor Star article was posted on May 17, and can be read here.

Get Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

BIBLIOASIS SPRING SEASON LAUNCH

Biblioasis’s own publisher Dan Wells was interviewed on AM 800’s The Shift with Patty Handsides on May 16, about our upcoming Spring Season Launch! The launch, which will take place in Windsor on May 23, will celebrate five of our newest titles: Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie, The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley, Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins, Barfly by Michael Lista, and Work to Be Done by Bruce Whiteman.

Listen to the full interview here!

More details about next week’s launch here.

Media Hits: HOLLOW BEAST, EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, and more!

May 3, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was featured in Words Without Borders‘ April Watchlist! The article was posted online on April 29, and can be read here.

Tobias Carroll writes,

“The Hollow Beast is a sprawling story of generational feuds and old hostilities that refuse to die . . . the novel also unfurls like a knowing parody of such epics, blending hallucinatory moments and possibly nonexistent cryptids with a decades-spanning narrative.”

Christophe Bernard, author of The Hollow Beast, was interviewed in Open Book online on May 3. You can read the full interview here.

Open Book writes,

“[Bernard] aims to leave a mark on the broader landscape of CanLit. The author travelled far and wide before diving into novel writing, and absorbed important lessons from modern literary greats, channelling his experiences and influences into a singular voice.”

Get The Hollow Beast here!

Alex Pugsley, author of The Education of Aubrey McKee wrote an article for The New Quarterly, “What’s Alex Pugsley Reading?” The article was posted online on May 1, and can be read here.

The New Quarterly also published an excerpt from Pugsley’s The Education of Aubrey McKee, “The Calvin Dover Show.” The excerpt can be read online here, and is also published in their Spring 170 print issue.

The Education of Aubrey McKee was also reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly on May 2, and you can read the full review here.

Publishers Weekly writes,

“The novel has an inventive structure, beginning with a short story set sometime in the future about Aubrey working as a writer on a sketch-comedy show and ending with a play by Aubrey.”

Get The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

And check out the first book, Aubrey McKee, here!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire, was interviewed in Open Book! The interview was published online on April 26, and can be read here.

When asked what the best and worst parts of being a poet is, Coco answered,

“I think the work of poetry is the best about being a poet. The weaving of the mesh that draws disparates into proximity and through their ensuing reciprocal rubs, enlightens, delights, unveils, enrages, and begets meaning, and question, and reckon..”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel has been nominated for the 2024 Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s Elgin Award! The full list of nominees can be found here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

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

April 26, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jon Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024), has been reviewed in the Financial Times! The review was published online on April 24, and is available to read in full here.

Reviewer Boyd Tonkin writes,

“Roughton’s radiant English versions of Stefánsson’s novels about the Icelandic encounter with modernity have built into one of the glories of 21st-century literary translation. Craggily gorgeous yet fluid and tender, sometimes comic, they capture the books’ balance between the powers of nature and the passions of humanity with consummate skill . . . This novel with a colloquial, intimate, up-to-date voice boasts sturdy epic bones . . . Throughout, the rhythmic, idiomatic prose gives pulsing reality to people and place, as Stefánsson both cherishes his ramifying clan and warns that only imagination makes them live.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was also reviewed in World Literature Today. The review was published online on April 26 here, and will appear in their May print issue.

Reviewer Daniel Haeusser writes,

“Your Absence Is Darkness posits that we find happiness together even in that melancholy, using arts like music or literature to assert and explore our human connections, to forgive imperfection, and to thumb our noses at inevitability . . . its insights and gorgeously haunting prose make it a novel that fans of philosophic or metaphysical literature should experience.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

BARFLY

Michael Lista, author of the forthcoming poetry collection Barfly (Jun 4, 2024), was interviewed by Tara Henley on the Lean Out podcast. The interview was posted online on April 24, and you can listen to it in full here.

Tara calls the book,

“Exquisitely raw and vulnerable.”

Order Barfly here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023), was featured in Montreal Blog’s article, “We asked 6 Montreal bookstores what every local should read at least once,” chosen by Argo Bookshop. The list was published online on April 23. You can read the article in full here.

The Argo Bookshop team commented,

“Beyond having just won Canada Reads, this book is so artfully crafted, and gives us a poetic vision: despite terrible societal changes, an imaginative future of community and hope can still arise.”

Get The Future here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 2, 2024) was featured in the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review‘s list of new poetry titles. The article was published on April 23, and you can see the full list here.

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was featured in the Chicago Review of Book‘s list of “5 Books by Booksellers About Bookselling.” The article was published online on April 24, and be read here.

Greg Zimmerman writes,

“If you want to really dive deeply into the world of bookselling, this is the exact book for you.”

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) was reviewed in Alberta Views! The review was published in their May print issue.

Reviewer Alex Lettie writes,

“The stories here are brightly coloured, sharp-edged and shatterproof.”

Get Burn Man here!

Media Hits: ALL THINGS MOVE, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, WORK TO BE DONE, and more!

April 19, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

Work to Be Done by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada! The review was published online on April 15, and will appear in the May print issue. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Keith Garebian writes,

“Divided into five parts, Work to Be Done reveals a mind steeped in the classics, particularly the works of Hesiod, Virgil, and Ovid. The book is rigorous in exercise and academically precise, and it strives for a perspective that sometimes seems Olympian in tone.”

Grab Work to Be Done here!

Colleen Coco Collins, author of Sorry About the Fire (April 2, 2024), was interviewed for All Lit Up‘s ‘There’s a Poem For That’ series! The interview was published online on April 16, and can be read in full here.

Grab Sorry About the Fire here!

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada, in the article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Your Absence Is Darkness] . . . lends itself to any number of superlatives: Masterful. Intelligent. Haunting. Biblical and modern in equal measure.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was reviewed in the Tulsa Book Review online on April 19. Check out the full review here.

Reviewer Kevin Winter writes,

“If you are into slightly weird, esoteric literary fiction . . . then this book is for you.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024) was also reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada’s article ‘Found in Translation.’ The review will appear in the May print issue.

The review states,

“[Sajko’s] sentences mimic how, in the heat of argument, thoughts converge, events conflate, and emotions surge until one forgets where it all began.”

Get Love Novel here!

The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley (May 7, 2024) was featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“This latest is the second book in what is expected to be a four-book series, which began with 2020’s Aubrey McKee, which our reviewer called ‘exuberant, freewheeling stories’ with the general theme of ‘the insanity of being human.'”

Order The Education of Aubrey McKee here!

Check out the first book in The Aubrey McKee Novels, Aubrey McKee, here!

BARFLY

Barfly by Michael Lista (June 4, 2024) was also featured in the Toronto Star‘s “Spring preview: 21 books to put at the top of your reading list.” The article was posted online on April 17, and can be read here.

Deborah Dundas writes,

“The language is punchy, it can be raunchy, benefits from being read aloud, and when you do, like a Hole song, it’s full of bravado and vulnerability.”

Order Barfly here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall was featured in Vanity Fair‘s article “11 Books to Read This Month”! The list was published online on April 16, and can be read here.

Keziah Weir calls the book,

“Rich, meditative . . . The book is part art history, part memoir; a case for slowing down, curiosity, a closer look.”

Get All Things Move here!

Media Hits: SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, THE FUTURE, WORK TO BE DONE!

April 12, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 23, 2024) was reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published on April 5, 2024, and you can read the full article here.

Wanda Praamsma writes:

“The poems in this slim volume, the first from artist and songwriter Colleen Coco Collins, feel richly off-kilter, exciting as they bound from earth and the material and felt treasures and on through the infinite.”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

Work to Be Done: Selected Essays and Reviews by Bruce Whiteman (Mar 12, 2024) was featured in Lit Hub for it’s US publication! The article was published on April 9, 2024 and can be read here.

Grab Work to Be Done here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) was reviewed in PRISM international. The review was posted online on April 5, 2024, and you can read the full piece here.

Reviewer Marcie McCauley writes,

“Catherine Leroux’s novel The Future (freshly translated by Susan Ouriou) presents a complex, layered story that probes how people navigate turbulent times, alone and together.”

Get The Future here!

Media Hits: SORRY ABOUT THE FIRE, HOLLOW BEAST, YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, and more!

April 5, 2024/in Latest News/by biblioasis

IN THE NEWS!

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (March 5, 2024) has been reviewed in The Washington Post. The review was published online on March 16, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Michael Barron writes:

“I couldn’t put it down.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on March 31, 2024. Read the full review here.

Alison Manley writes:

“Stefánsson is a brilliant storyteller, and Roughton’s translation is well-done, capturing the meandering tone of the characters as they wander through the decades.”

Your Absence Is Darkness was also featured in Lit Hub as one of “The 22 Best Book Covers of March.” See the full article here.

Grab Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simic (Feb 6, 2024) was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press on March 16, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Harriet Zaidman writes:

“Sajko’s taut, innovative writing has a pounding tempo; she unleashes a stream of consciousness that combines all the hopes, regrets and resentments competing in the minds of her characters . . . Every word has been chosen carefully.”

Love Novel was also reviewed in The Miramichi Reader, published online on March 16, 2024. Check out that review here.

Anne Smith-Nochasak writes:

“A necessary read . . . brief yet intricate, raw but profoundly touching.”

Grab Love Novel here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christopher Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (April 2, 2024) has been listed by CBC Books as one of “52 works of Canadian fiction coming out in spring 2024.” The list was published online on March 2, 2024 and can be read here.

The Hollow Beast was featured in the Globe and Mail’s Spring Preview, published online on April 4, 2024. Check out the full preview here.

Emily Donaldson writes:

“The seed of Bernard’s big, high-octane novel, which won several Quebec prizes, and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor-General’s Award in French, is a 1911 hockey game in Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula whose bizarre, controversial ending results in a generations-long vendetta.”

Grab The Hollow Beast here!

Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (April 23, 2024) was featured in CBC Books as one of their “37 Books to Watch for Spring 2024.” The article was published online on April 2, 2024. Check out the full article here.

Sorry About the Fire was also reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The article was published online on April 1, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Critic Michael Greenstein writes:

“Drawn to rims, arising patterns, nervy and peripheral flow, a hard-won lexicon, oblique echoes of crow, and twist of contrapposto, the Irish-French-Indigenous poet windhovers and burns through words and pages until the nadir of ember and ash.”

Get Sorry About the Fire here!

Bruce Whiteman, author of Work to Be Done (March 12, 2024) was interviewed on Open Book. The interview was published online on April 2, 2024, and you can read the full interview here.

Get Work to Be Done here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie (October 8, 2024) was featured in the Globe and Mail’s Spring Preview, published online on April 4, 2024. Check out the full preview here.

Emily Donaldson writes:

“Bourrie’s latest, like its Charles Taylor Prize-winning predecessor, Bush Runner, focuses on the clash between European and Indigenous cultures in 17th-century colonial North America. Here, it’s the events leading to the violent ruin of Huronia, traditional home of the Huron-Wendat people, as they were experienced by the French Jesuit missionary and mystic Jean de Brébeuf.”

Order Crosses in the Sky here!