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

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2024), according to CBC Books is the #1 bestselling Canadian fiction title in Canada this week! You can view the full list here.

The Future was featured in the Windsor Star. The article was published on January 13, 2024, and you can read the full profile here.

Trevor Wilhelm writes:

“Dystopian novel The Future, published by Windsor’s Bibliosias, is in the running for a national competition to determine the one book to rule them all.”

Catherine Leroux, author of The Future, has been interviewed on CBC: Let’s Go. The interview aired on January 15, 2024. Listen to the full interview here.

Grab your copy of The Future here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) received an outstanding review in the New York Times! The review was published online on January 13, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Lincoln Michel writes:

“Anyone who enjoys poetry in prose, who feels enlivened by language and struck by sentences, will find much to admire in Burn Man. Jarman’s stories are full of violence, tragedy and mistakes. Yet there’s plenty of humor and heart too. […] Burn Man left me seeing a bit more beauty in our hurting-heart world.”

Burn Man was featured again in the New York Times by Greg Cowles as part of their Editor’s Choice column: “9 New Books We Recommend This Week.” The article was published online on January 25, 2024, and can be read here.

Cowles says, of Burn Man:

“The Canadian author Jarman may not be a familiar name in the United States just yet, but this anthology aims to fix that.”

Burn Man was reviewed by Andrew Hood on The Bookshelf’s website. The review was published online on January 19, 2024, and can be read here.

Hood writes:

“If I would compare Jarman to anyone other than himself, it would be to Tom Waits. Post-Kathleen Brennan Tom Waits. Yes, these are stories in the generic sense, just as a Tom Waits song is, technically, a song, but they are made of different things. For Waits, anything is percussive if you bang on it hard enough in the right place, and Jarman bashes language in the same way. The instrumentation in a Jarman story may sometimes sound conventional, but once isolated, sounds like nothing other than what it is. […] Reading Jarman is often, and I mean this in the best way possible, like drinking from a fire hose.”

Burn Man has also been excerpted in Lit Hub. The excerpt was published online on January 17, 2024—take a look here.

Get Burn Man here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (March 5, 2024)  is an Indie Next Pick for March and has also received an outstanding starred review in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on January 14, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Publishers Weekly writes:

“What makes this so irresistible is the narrator’s constant optimism as he probes profound questions from within the murk of his consciousness (“Give me darkness, and then I’ll know where the light is”). Stefánsson is poised to make his mark on the world stage.”

Order your copy of Your Absence is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić was featured on Kirkus Reviews as one of “20 Titles You Can Read in a Week.” The article was published online on January 24, 2024. Check out the full list here.

Order your copy of Love Novel here!

BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2024 & BEST CANADIAN ESSAYS 2024

Best Canadian Essays 2024 and Best Canadian Poetry 2024 (Nov 14, 2023) have been reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The article was published online on January 23, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Christina Barber writes of the anthologies:

“A testament to the importance of literature in Canada … it is a powerful body that celebrates the creative and literary spirit of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.”

Best Canadian Essays 2024 was also reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The article was published online on January 13, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

Susan Huebert writes:

“Each of the authors in Best Canadian Essays 2024 offers a particular style and perspective, but the essays work together to provide a picture of some of the issues Canadians have been facing. Many readers are likely to find something to interest them in this short collection of essays.”

Grab your copy of Essays here and Poetry here!

Check out all three Best Canadian anthologies here!

CASE STUDY, CONFESSION WITH KEITH, TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE and more: Reviews and Lists!

IN THE NEWS!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been reviewed in the Michigan Daily! The review was published online on September 21, 2022. Read the full review here.

Julian Wray writes,

Case Study reflects on relationships of power: the physical power of abusive men over women, the lingering power of memory over oneself. It reflects on the power of one’s wishes over one’s reality, the schism we create in ourselves when we resign to our present state and nothing more. Rebecca is a case study of what happens when desires run away on their own, such that a person is left to watch them go.”

Case Study has also received a starred review in Foreword Reviews! The review will be printed in their November/December issue. Check out the full review here.

An excerpt from the review:

“The fictional author and Burnet share the same initials, which should be a clue as to how close the book will come to breaking the fourth wall … The matryoshka-style layering of narratives, each dependent on the other, is engaging and disorienting. Case Study is an immersive novel that stretches its fiction to fact-like proportions.”

Order your copy of Case Study here!

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Confessions With Keith by Pauline Holdstock (September 20, 2022) was reviewed at the Winnipeg Free Press by Bev Sandell Greenberg! The article, “Domestic story of a dysfunctional delight” was published online on September 26, 2022. You can read the full article here.

Greenberg writes,

“Replete with sensory details, the four-part narrative consists of journals written in Vita’s voice in succinct, cheeky prose … The journals establish a sense of intimacy that endears us to Vita, but they also convey a level of tension palpable on every page … Holdstock’s fast-paced comic novel with its entertaining narrative will captivate readers, especially those who relish domestic tales.”

Confessions With Keith was reviewed in The Vancouver Sun by Brett Josef Grubisic! The article, “Holdstock extracts witty, painful glimpse into one woman’s revolving life” was published online on September 21, 2022. Read the full article here.

Grubisic writes,

“Magnetic … artfully expressed—funny, honest, wry, intimate—private thoughts … On page after assured page, Vita [is] confounded thrilled, irked, hurt, and envious—about minutia as well as the big picture—and all of which are facets of what she calls ‘the senselessness of human existence.'”

Get your copy of Confessions with Keith here!

ON BROWSING

On Browsing by Jason Guriel (October 8, 2022) has been excerpted in The Walrus. They’ve titled it “I Miss Being Bored at the Mall.”

You can read the whole excerpt here.

Grab your copy of On Browsing here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been included in the Quill & Quire Fall Books Preview published online on September 21, 2022. Check out the full list here.

Attila Berki writes,

“Mark Bourrie revives the life of George McCullagh—a charismatic high-school dropout, a self-made millionaire, the creator and owner of the Globe and Mail, and a man with great political potential—whose fall in the mid-20th century would be as steep as his rise to prominence.”

Order your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022) has been featured in the New York Times as part of their Newly Published column. The article was published on September 21, 2022. You can read the full article here.

The New York Times writes,

“This combination literary history, travelogue and cautionary tale tells the history of the formerly uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda and its development into a ‘micronation’ ruled by writers, beginning with the science fiction author M.P. Shiel in 1880.”

Try Not to Be Strange was also featured in Fine Books & Collections as one of their editor’s picks. The article was published online on September 16, 2022. You can read the full article here.

Fine Books & Collections writes,

“Combining travelogue, memoir, and literary history, Hingston has crafted a fascinating tale full of eccentric characters. Editions of all sizes play a role in the drama, and bibliophiles will also relish the author’s auction experience.”

Grab your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

THIS TIME, THAT PLACE

This Time, That Place by Clark Blaise (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed at Kirkus Reviews. The review will go live September 28, 2022.

The reviewer writes,

“These stories cover ground not only geographically. They are also crowded with character and incident, always fiercely and smartly observed … Blaise has gathered here a smart, sprawling collection of stories about family, rootlessness, and identity.”

Grab your copy of This Time, That Place here!

CHEMICAL VALLEY, EYES OF THE RIGEL, THE AFFIRMATIONS, HAIL THE INVISIBLE WATCHMAN: Media Hits

IN THE NEWS!

CHEMICAL VALLEY

Chemical Valley cover

Chemical Valley by David Huebert (October 19, 2021), has been featured by CBC Books as part of ‘11 Canadian books to read for Earth Day 2022’! The list was posted online on April 22, 2022. Check out the full list here.

Chemical Valley was also reviewed by Peter Szuban in PRISM International! The review was posted online on April 21, 2022. Read the full review here.

Szuban writes,

“The characters in David Huebert’s new short story collection Chemical Valley live in a world that has been molded and shaped by neoliberalism and the oil industry—where the vulnerability of their bodies is constantly being subjected to a vague calculus that includes economic precarity, shifting personal relationships, and a natural environment lurching towards catastrophe. It’s a situation that could easily elicit nihilism, doom, and mourning—a kind of eco-grief—and yet, the various stories in this collection strive and yearn towards a sublime toxicity that finds beauty amidst the debris, and accordingly, in the lives of its inhabitants.”

Get your copy of Chemical Valley here!

EYES OF THE RIGEL

The third novel in Roy Jacobsen‘s The Barrøy Chronicles, Eyes of the Rigel (April 5, 2022), has been excerpted in Lit Hub! The excerpt was posted online on April 21, 2022. You can read the full excerpt here.

Get your copy of Eyes of the Rigel here!

THE AFFIRMATIONS

The Affirmations by Luke Hathaway (April 5, 2022) was excerpted in Lit Hub. The excerpt was published online on April 22, 2022.

You can view the poem, “As the Hart Panteth After the Water Brooks,” here.

Get your copy of The Affirmations here!

HAIL, THE INVISIBLE WATCHMAN

Hail, the Invisible Watchman by Alexandra Oliver (April 5, 2022), was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on April 25, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Alison Manley writes:

Hail, the Invisible Watchman by Alexandra Oliver is a true triumph, with tight, well-constructed poems creating multiple worlds and stories. Oliver’s use of formal structure and metre is flawless, rich and enveloping. […] Oliver flits between contemporary settings to more distant ones, from the mundane every day to pop culture and all strange manners in between. […] The range of this collection is spectacular. The twists that Oliver places in her verses are sly and magical, the way she uses language and metre to craft such strong imagery in a handful of lines is truly masterful.”

Get your copy of Hail, the Invisible Watchman here!