Posts tagged as:

Montreal book

BOOKS

Chocolate Mousse and Sexy Waitresses

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Wandering Souls in Paradise Lost, by Hélène Rioux, Cormorant Books

by Francine Diot-Layton
07.03.2011

Of the many paradises Hélène Rioux explores in Wandering Souls in Paradise Lost, she omits one: settling down by the fire on a cold winter’s night with a good book. With Wandering Souls – the second of planned tetralogy “Fragments of the World,” the accomplished award-winning poet, translator and novelist (Wandering Souls is her seventh [...]

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BOOKS

Ode on a Dead Thing

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Song of the Taxidermist, by Aurian Haller, Goose Lane Editions

by Abby Paige
06.03.2011

Who is more attuned to the details of his art than the taxidermist? Life is not in the body’s overall fact but its odd postures and subtleties of expression, the animating powers of its inhabitant. Despite its Victorian creepiness, there is something naïve and optimistic about taxidermy: its sincere wish to interrupt inevitable decay, to [...]

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BOOKS

Fragments of Montreal Life, Lovingly Rendered

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Suddenly Something Happened, by Jimmy Beaulieu, Conundrum Press

by Megan Stewart
01.03.2011

Wine-soaked summer nights on a Plateau balcony, strangers brought together by snowstorms, the sidewalk ballet of attractive and eccentric, graceful and occasionally unruly characters – Jimmy Beaulieu lovingly renders these fragments of Montreal life in pencil and ink on the pages of his newest graphic novel, Suddenly Something Happened.

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BOOKS

If You Don’t Make a Noise

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Lives Whole and Otherwise, by H. Nigel Thomas, TSAR

by Alice Petersen
28.02.2011

H. Nigel Thomas’ collection of short stories, Lives Whole and Otherwise, is not a book to curl up with under the duvet.  These are spiky, uncomfortable tales that will leave you with your eyes wide open to the difficulties of being a Black immigrant in Montreal.

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BOOKS

Of Deep Respect and Unfulfilled Potential

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Of Water and Rock, by Thomas Armstrong, DC Books

by B. A. Markus
20.02.2011

Book reviewers know better than anyone that behind every great book there’s a great editor. A literary editor works behind the scenes to help a novel reach its full potential, but there is rarely any glory or ego-stroking for the editor. There is just the satisfaction of a job well done and hopefully a heartfelt [...]

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BOOKS

A Sweeping Family Saga, Deeply Connected

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Come Again No More, by Jack Todd, Simon & Schuster

by Neil MacRae
13.02.2011

Years ago, Eli Paint banished his daughter Velma from his 8T8 Ranch with her infant, child of one of his hired hands.  He is confronted with his granddaughter Emeline, now a young woman, at her mother’s funeral.  Afterward, Eli drives Emeline to the house she and her kid brother Bobby share with another waitress from the [...]

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BOOKS

Around Montreal in 80 Years

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You Could Lose an Eye: My First 80 Years in Montreal, by David Reich, Baraka Books

by B. A. Markus
23.01.2011

Digital technology and a demographic boom for the over-sixty set has meant a deluge of memoirs written by retirees with literary aspirations, like David Reich, author of You Could Lose an Eye. I had high hopes for You Could Lose an Eye. According to the press release, the book provides “… an insider’s view of [...]

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BOOKS

From Galapagos to Memphremagog

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Evolution: The View from the Cottage, by Jean-Pierre Rogel, Ronsdale Press

by Joni Dufour
17.01.2011

Second only to string theory, evolutionary genetics is quite possibly the most difficult science to communicate to us plebians. Science writer Jean-Pierre Rogel is therefore to be applauded for attempting the task in his first book, Evolution: The View from the Cottage. His incentive for promoting greater understanding of evolution comes partly from the rise [...]

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BOOKS

A Splintered Chorus of Truths

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The Obituary, by Gail Scott, Coach House Books

by Abby Paige
10.01.2011

If you have ever attempted to trace your own genealogy, you know it is not a simple matter of careful, cosy research. It is an active struggle against the forgettings, omissions, and concealments of previous generations. No matter how pristine the pedigree, every family has a few skeletons, packed away in cottony half-truths that over [...]

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BOOKS

Navigating the Franklin Expedition in Fiction

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On the Proper Use of Stars, by Dominique Fortier, McClelland & Stewart

by Francine Diot-Layton
26.12.2010

The original French version of Dominique Fortier’s first novel On the Proper Use of Stars burst onto the literary scene, becoming a finalist for several 2009 French Canadian literary awards, including the Governor General’s.  Thanks to Sheila Fischman’s translation, English readers can now savour the superb recounting of Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition in search [...]

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BOOKS

Quite Simply Delicious

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Bird Eat Bird, by Katrina Best, Insomniac Press

by Joseph Elfassi
13.12.2010

Katrina Best’s short story collection, Bird Eat Bird, is a fun, light read from an author who has mastered the art of quirkiness, deadpan humor and quiet desperation. The book is quite simply delicious, and reveals Best’s knack for witty dialogue.

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BOOKS

Ben Allan’s Complaint

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Midway, by David Homel, Cormorant Books

by B. A. Markus
12.12.2010

David Homel’s previous novels have been praised for their passionate intelligence and insightful descriptions of the human condition. Books like the award-winning The Speaking Cure and Sonya and Jack are considered to be powerful commentaries on the moral and emotional lives of men and women in settings of war and deprivation. Adjectives like exotic, erotic [...]

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BOOKS

Goes Best with Thunder and Lightning

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Unearthly Asylum, by P.J. Bracegirdle, Simon & Schuster Inc.

by Eleanor Brown
05.12.2010

It was a dark and stormy night. Or, as P.J. Bracegirdle writes, “The night was wretched. Rain clattered and wind howled. Gates banged and screeched as garbage cans blew down driveways and crashed into garage doors. Swollen black rivers rushed along gutters, roaring down through sewer grates.”

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BOOKS

Intimate Commerce

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The Stream Exposed with All its Stones: Collected Poems, by D.G. Jones, Signal Editions

by Abby Paige
07.11.2010

“What shall we make of Leviathan?” asked D.G. Jones in Butterfly on Rock, his 1970 volume of critical essays. In the book, Jones argued against a “garrisoned,” colonial impulse he saw at the centre of Canadian literature, which favoured the masculine over the feminine, the rational over the natural, the intellect over the body. “The [...]

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BOOKS

Biography of a Friendship

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The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das, by Merrily Weisbord, McGill-Queen’s University Press

by Katia Grubisic
01.11.2010

By contemporary Western standards, the poetry of the late Indian writer Kamala Das contains little that seems untoward. It all boils down to sex and death, we understand nonchalantly, we who are unshockable, who are most devout about our artistic impieties. But in a social and literary context of female erasure, Das eschewed thematic and [...]

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