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

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: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, OFF THE RECORD, THE FUTURE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

GLOBE 100 BEST BOOKS OF 2023

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023), Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor (Aug 15, 2023), Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton (Apr 18 2023) and The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (Aug 1, 2023) have been featured by the Globe and Mail as a part of “The Globe 100: The Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 8, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (Nov 7, 2023), was selected as one of CBC Books’ Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2023. The article was published online on December 14, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get On Community here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

A review of Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 31, 2023) was featured in Cemetery Dance Magazine. The review was published online on December 12, 2023. You can read the review here.

Critic Blu Gilliand writes,

“Seth’s illustrations suggest more than they actually show, adding to the quiet horror creeping around the edges. These are perfect for a quick read on a cold winter’s night, and are sure to warm the cockles of any jaded horror fan’s heart.”

Also, a “visual taste” of Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories was featured in the Literary Review of Canada‘s Bookworm newsletter. The excerpt was published online on December 12, 2023. You can check out the excerpted illustrations here.

Grab all three 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the rest of the series here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) has been reviewed in the New Yorker as part of their “Briefly Noted” column. The article was published online and in print on December 18, 2023. You can read the full review here.

The New Yorker writes:

“Feeney’s prose is beautifully crisp.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, trans. by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) has been featured on CBC Day 6’s Holiday Gift Guide. The list was published on December 18, 2023. The complete CBC Day 6 gift guide can be seen here.

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed on CBC’s Afternoon Drive. The interview aired on December 15, 2023. Listen to the full Afternoon Drive interview here.

Get The Future here!

OFF THE RECORD

Off the Record edited by John Metcalf (Dec 5, 2023) was reviewed in The BC Review. The review was published online on December 18, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Brett Josef Grubisic calls it:

“Carefully wrought, tonally diverse, artful, thoughtful, revelatory, and nothing short of enticing.”

An interview with Caroline Adderson on her experience contributing to Off the Record was featured in Open Book. The interview was published online on December 12, 2023, and can be read here.

The book is described by Open Book in glowing terms:

“Metcalf challenges six decorated Canadian authors to consider and share just how they became writers. Each essay is accompanied by a short story, showcasing each writer’s literary identity and style, and providing insight into how each writer approaches their work and their editorial relationships.”

Get Off the Record here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (Nov 14, 2023) has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on December 9, 2023, and can be viewed here.

Publishers Weekly writes,

“The volume’s particular magic lies in Barnes’s adept use of free-flowing chronology and hallucinatory language to immerse readers in the depths of his psychosis … This isn’t easy to forget.”

Mike Barnes was also interviewed on CBC’s Fresh Air on December 9, 2023 and published a playlist for the book on Largehearted Boy on December 11, 2023.

You can listen to the full interview here, and check out Barnes’ playlist here.

Get Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country here!

POGUEMAHONE

Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe was listed on The Book Beat‘s Year-End Favorites by Tom Bowden. The list was published online on December 14, 2023, and can be seen here.

Bowden writes,

Poguemahone, for all its bleakly comic episodes, is more seriously about the tensions between traditional and modern ways, trust and betrayal, memory and vengeance, and British / Irish power dynamics.”

Get Poguemahone here!

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

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!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT longlisted for THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023!

We’re thrilled to share that this morning at 4 AM ET, the Booker Prizes announced the longlist for the 2023 Booker Prize. Among them is How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney which will be published by Biblioasis on November 7, 2023. 

The 2023 Booker judges on How to Build a Boat: “The interweaving stories of Jamie, a teenage boy trying to make sense of the world, and Tess, a teacher at his school, make up this humorous and insightful novel about family and the need for connection. Feeney has written an absorbing coming-of-age story which also explores the restrictions of class and education in a small community. A complex and genuinely moving novel.”

“We fell in love with Elaine Feeney as a person and as a writer when we published her debut novel, As You Were, a few years ago,” says Dan Wells, owner and publisher of Biblioasis. “We loved the beauty of her writing, the generous humanity of her characterization, while at the same time her unflinching willingness to explore the world in all of its at times uncomfortable complexity. How to Build a Boat, her second novel, brings all of these talents to the fore. What we’re most grateful for with this Booker nomination is that it should help us bring more readers to Elaine’s marvellous work.”

How to Build a Boat was first published in the UK in spring of 2023, where it has since received wide acclaim. This is the third of Biblioasis’ books to be nominated for the Booker Prize. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet was longlisted in 2022, and Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport was shortlisted in 2019.

 The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969. Its aim was to stimulate the reading and discussion of contemporary fiction. The shortlist will be announced online on September 21, 2023.

Order your copy of How to Build a Boat from Biblioasis here!

Credit: Julia Monard

ABOUT HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

A funny and deeply moving novel about a boy, his dream, and the people who lend him a hand, by the acclaimed author of As You Were

Jamie O’Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age thirteen, there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother, Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him.

How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, Tess and Tadhg, and brings together a community. Written with tenderness and verve, it’s about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone.

ABOUT ELAINE FEENEY

Elaine Feeney is an award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer and playwright from the west of Ireland. How to Build a Boat, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023, is Feeney’s second novel. Her 2020 debut, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. Feeney has published three collections of poetry, including The Radio Was Gospel and Rise, and her short story “Sojourn” was included in The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. Feeney lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway. 

AS YOU WERE Virtual Launch Video

On Saturday, October 16, we held the virtual launch of Elaine Feeney’s As You Were! Elaine had an excellent discussion with Douglas Stuart, Booker-Prize winning author of Shuggie Bain, and the event was hosted by Grace Harper. Afterward, there was an audience Q&A, and a book giveaway!

And if you weren’t able to watch the event live, no worries! You can still watch it here:

ABOUT AS YOU WERE

Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terminal cancer diagnosis—but no one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie. Yet she can’t go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the ward, Margaret Rose is running her chaotic family from her rose-gold Nokia. In the neighbouring bed, Jane, rarely but piercingly lucid, is searching for a decent bra and for someone to listen. And Sinéad needs them both.

As You Were is about intimate histories, institutional failures, the kindness of strangers, and the darkly present past of modern Ireland; about women’s stories and women’s struggles; about seizing the moment to be free. Wildly funny, desperately tragic, inventive and irrepressible, As You Were introduces a brilliant new voice.

ABOUT ELAINE FEENEY

Elaine Feeney is an award-winning writer from Galway and teaches at The National University of Ireland, Galway. She has published three collections of poetry, including The Radio was Gospel and Rise and the award-winning drama, WRoNGHEADED with The Liz Roche Company. As You Were, her debut novel, was published in 2020 by Vintage in the UK and in 2021 by Biblioasis in North America. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and was included in The Guardian’s top debut novels for 2020. It appeared widely in best books of 2020 including in The Telegraph, The Irish Independent, The Evening Standard, The Guardian, The Observer and The Irish Times.

Order from Biblioasis here!