FRESH LIT (Not Canned)

Circus Maximus

Circus Maximus

David Starkey

Michaelangelo, Titian, Bernini—The Vatican’s Gallery of Maps, the Capella Paolina—La Pietà, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, The Calling of St. Matthew. Tour these and dozens of other Italian landmarks with the poems of Circus Maximus, David Starkey’s garrulous new guide to Rome, whose subjects shuffle everywhere from the Sistine Chapel to “The Ugliest Jesus in the History of Western Art. ”.

See this book

Tuner of Silences, The

Tuner of Silences, The

Mia Couto

  "Quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa. "—Doris Lessing "By meshing the richness of African beliefs . . . into the Western framework of the novel, he creates a mysterious and surreal epic. "—Henning Mankell Mwanito Vitalício was eleven when he saw a woman for the first time, and the sight so surprised him he burst into tears. Mwanito's been living in a big-game park for eight years. The only people…

See this book

For as Far as the Eye Can See

For as Far as the Eye Can See

Robert Melançon

In a world where text is “as fluid as the rain we see running in the streets,” and the printed word “a monument as fragile as the grass,” what is the place of poetry? Impressionistic, seasonal, inspired by the Pléiade and the poets of present-day Québec, this calendar of 144 “light sonnets” is a measured meditation on art, nature, and mutability.

See this book

Canary

Canary

Nancy Jo Cullen

  “Gas, grass, or ass: No one rides for free. ” So begins this cheeky and chirpy short story debut. Working-class, a little queer, and hysterically funny, Cullen’s characters—from the hymn-singing Catholic merchandise salesman to a young lez, hitching cross-country beside a born-again pile of ashes—all encounter the killer decisions that invisibly, quietly, and quirkily shape their lives.

See this book

Pope's Bookbinder, The

Pope's Bookbinder, The

David Mason

  "Entertaining, moving, informative, intelligently hopeful: I know of few other books like this one to warm the cockles of a booklover's heart. " —Alberto Manguel   "For anyone who loves books too well—who lusts after them, lives in them, mainlines them—David Mason’s memoir will be a fix from heaven. Heartful, cantankerous, droll, his tales of honour and obsession in the trade gratify the very book-love they portray.

See this book

Keeping the Peace

Keeping the Peace

Colette Maitland

A soldier’s wife struggles to reconnect with her daughter after her husband is killed overseas. A willful prostitute refuses the help of the enigmatic and evangelical Jared. A heart attack survivor perplexes his family with a newfound sense of religious euphoria, while a nursing home volunteer struggles against years’ worth of bad behaviour in one of her veteran patients. Character-driven, probing grief and insularity, Colette Maitland’s…

See this book

Monkey Puzzle Tree, The

Monkey Puzzle Tree, The

Sonia Tilson

Gillian Davies is six years old when her mother sends her to Croessfordd to escape the Blitz. But can she escape the sexually coercive Angus, who’s returning from boarding school for Christmas vacation? Alternating between WWII Wales and present-day Canada, The Monkey Puzzle Tree is the story of Gillian’s struggle to accept her childhood trauma, forgive her mother, and confront Angus—who, it seems, is as dangerous as ever.

See this book