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TRB Live: November
TRB Live is a monthly roundup of literary events you might enjoy. Get in touch with me (@kathmcleod) or the TRB (@TorontoReview) on Twitter if you’d like to suggest an event to include next month. In Toronto, Pivot Reading Series presents three readings all-star casts of readers: Leesa Dean, Stevie Howell, Rob Taylor, and Erin Wunker on November 2;…
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Blood and Lost Treasures: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books. The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk (Signal) – Munk offers an incisive portrait of development economist (and mercurial egoist) Jeffrey Sachs. Focusing on Sachs’s UN-supported project to alleviate extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, she launches a…
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Histories and Hauntings: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (McClelland & Stewart) – Hailed as a promising young writer after her award-winning first novel, Eleanor Catton won the Man Booker Prize for this 800-page historical saga. Attracted to Hokitika by the West Coast Gold Rush, Walter Moody…
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Dante, Science, Masculinity and Travels: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Dante’s House by Richard Greene (Vehicule Press) — Greene’s verses begin by tackling the intangible — the faint, grey areas of “rumours, misunderstandings and half-truths that often comprise our knowledge of the others” — and end with an homage in…
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Remembering Family and Searching for Home: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Strays by Ed Kavanaugh (Killick Press) — Kavanaugh’s ten short stories revolve around emotional and social vagabonds from all walks of Canadian life. Despite the succinctly despondent title and theme, readers are promised stories told with humour, insight and sensitivity.…
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Sad Clowns, Family Secrets, and Secret Gardens: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Kolia by Perrine LeBlanc, translated by David Scott Hamilton (House of Anansi) — Born in a Siberian gulag, Kolia receives basic survival training as well as higher education from fellow prisoner Iosif. This past and its memories follow and haunt…
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Writers and Editors, Murders and Infatuations, Love and Comics: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Scissors: A Novel (Random House) by Stéphane Michaka — This fictionalized biography is based on acclaimed American writer Raymond Carver’s last ten years of life, with particular focus on the relationship between the writer and his editor and their creative…
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Flying Hare, Problem with Pleasure, Zen Buddhism, and Fighting Crohn’s Disease: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. A Gut Reaction: A True Story About a Mother’s Fight to Save her Son’s Life and his Amazing Recovery from Crohn’s Disease (Inanna Press) by Sky Curtis — This is a true story about Curtis and her son’s battle against…
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Poetry Winners, Digital Cosmopolitans, and Hamlet’s Ghost: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. The Griffin Poetry Prize 2013 Anthology: A Selection of the Shortlist (House Of Anansi) edited by Mark Doty, Suzanne Buffam, Wang Ping — The Griffin Poetry Prize honours the world’s best poems written in English. The 2013 anthology includes selections…
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Literary Celebrity, Question of Art, and Canoe Nation: New Books of Note
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity (University of Toronto Press) by Lorraine York — York’s in-depth study examines the process by which a “literary celebrity” is created, specifically considering renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood and her team of…
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Dinner Parties, Moral Porn, and Papal Book-Binding: New Books of Note: May 30-June 6, 2013
Much-anticipated, curious, or simply thrilling, here are some new and notable books out this month. The Insufferable Gaucho (New Directions) by Roberto Bolaño — The Chilean poet and novelist’s five short stories and two essays, translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews, contain intrigues about “a stalwart rat police detective investigating terrible rodent crimes, or an elusive…