Hello, Bibliophile readers! It’s a pleasure to introduce myself as the new Sales Coordinator here at Biblioasis. This is the last day of my first week of full-time work, most of which I got to spend in the office in Windsor. Toronto is my beloved home base, but I’ve had a great time exploring the city and its environs—including one of the best Turkish bakeries I’ve yet come across in Ontario.
It’s hard to put into words just how exciting it is to have joined the (brilliant) Biblioasis team. Before starting at the press, I was working as a bookseller at the beautiful Flying Books on Queen Street in Toronto, which connected me to a vibrant literary community. I had spent the years between 2019 and 2024 teaching full time at The University of King’s College in Halifax, an experience I found incredibly meaningful, but publishing was my first love. Since as long as I can remember, I’ve had more books than space to accommodate them. Books have accompanied me throughout my life. They have given me a sense of place and rootedness in the midst of many types of transitions.
Sitting in the Biblioasis office with shelves of wonderful titles behind me has been a genuine thrill. There is a lot to learn, but after teaching for so many years, I’m enjoying feeling like a student again, making one discovery after another. Everyone I’ve met so far has been patient, supportive, and welcoming. I’m passionate about our books and I’m looking forward to championing them.
As a bonus, here are some of my favourite Biblioasis titles. Incidentally, they are all works of fiction written from the perspective of mothers: Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport (if you haven’t tackled the tome yet, take this as your sign—it’s more relevant than ever), Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat(one of the most lyrical genre-bending works I’ve come across), and Hanna Stoltenberg’s Near Distance(an unflinching modern take on the mother-daughter relationship that I think Simone de Beauvoir would have loved).
Hilary Ilkay Sales Coordinator
In other news, Lazer Lederhendler is the fiction winner of the French-American Foundation Prize for his translation of The Hollow Beast! The foundation conducted a short interview with Lazer about his experiences working with Christophe Bernard’s “beast of a novel.” We’re delighted to present it here, ahead of the awards ceremony in New York next week.
Q: What did you enjoy most about translating The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard?
Lazer: Problem solving is one of the things I love most about translating good fiction, and I was well served in that department by Christophe’s fabulous beast of a novel. I did a good amount of research on English dialects of Eastern Canada that are comparable to the French spoken on the Gaspé Peninsula, where most of the action is located. This proved to be not the most fruitful avenue, as the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the book are mainly due to Christophe’s unique and highly evocative visual style. In fact, it occurred to me that The Hollow Beast has all the makings of a wonderful graphic novel. So rather than focusing primarily on language equivalencies or approximations, I would picture the characters and scenes in detail and render those images into English (and afterwards, of course, make sure I hadn’t strayed from the original). On the other hand, however, there was the challenge of depicting the evolving speech patterns of the story’s hero, Monty, who starts out quasi-illiterate but through self-education (he carries around a copy of Homer’s Odyssey) progressively acquires a more sophisticated level of French.
Q: You specialize in translating contemporary Quebecois literature. What are some differences you’ve noticed between contemporary French literature in Canada and French literature in France?
Lazer: That’s a huge question, perhaps best left to academics. But one clear difference that does immediately come to mind is this: today, more than ever before, Québécois literature and Québécois culture and language in general are very much creatures of North America, whose references and influences point increasingly south and west rather than to Europe. This is true, at any rate, for most of the writers I’ve translated since the early 2000s — Nicolas Dickner, Catherine Leroux, Perrine Leblanc, et al — who are assuredly representative of contemporary Québécois fiction. Another basic difference worth mentioning is that the literature of France by and large takes the language for granted — ça va de soi. The same can’t be said of Quebec, where the French language has always been a battle field that, as a friend of mine put it, is foregrounded as a constituent part of the landscape.
Q: The French-American Foundation Translation Prize seeks to honor translators and their craft, and recognize the important work they do bringing works of French literature to Anglophone audiences. What does being named a winner for this prize mean to you, and, in your own words, why does a Prize like this matter?
Lazer: Translators are among the unsung artisans of literature endeavouring to carry the words and artistry of writers across the barriers of language and culture. We for the most part labour in the shadows in order to extend the reach and longevity of an author’s works. So it’s always encouraging and gratifying to have one’s efforts as a translator acknowledged and celebrated. What’s more, awards like the FrenchAmerican Foundation’s Translation Prize, spotlight books and writers that otherwise might not get the attention and readership they deserve.
In good publicity news:
The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana was reviewed (again!) in The New York Times: “Structurally ingenious, rendered in unusual and fine colors, buffed to a shine. A perfect debut novel, explicit in its excellence!”
Vijay Khurana was also interviewed on the podcast Final Draft.
Alice Chadwick interviewed Alice Chadwick for Debutiful.
https://www.biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/unnamed-scaled.jpg6172560biblioasishttp://biblioasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/BIBLIOASIS-Logo-500x500-White-300x300.pngbiblioasis2025-06-23 12:49:262025-06-23 12:49:28The Bibliophile: An introduction from our new Sales Coordinator
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Alice Chadwick’s Dark Like Under follows a large cast of characters—made up of students and teachers at an English secondary school in the 1980s—in the aftermath of a beloved teacher’s sudden death. The premise reminded me of Phillippe Falardeau’s devastating film Monsieur Lazhar, yet Dark Like Under, despite the grief and uncertainty that propel the narrative, feels radically life-giving.
This 336 page novel takes place over the course of a single day, which allows for a heightened attentiveness to the nuances of setting and character. Chadwick really does justice to her characters. I think Pamela Hensley (The Miramichi Reader) gets it right in her recent review:
“Every character is so richly depicted, so expertly drawn with emotional depth and intelligence that we understand not only the individual, but the way each person influences the others and how the town—and the country—has evolved.”
Dark Like Under is the kind of deep, soul-defining book that counters the train chug of reels and the trashiness of beach reads. It allows for immersion in a way that reminds me of summers reading Hardy as a young teenager (before I was expected to work).
Chadwick’s craft is care. This is a beautiful debut novel. It’s also a lovely physical object, with a cover designed by Kate Sinclair, and pages that smell of glue and early summer mornings.
I had the privilege of asking Alice Chadwick a few questions over email, and I’m delighted to share her thoughtful responses here.
Dominique Béchard Publicist
Photo: Dark Like Under by Alice Chadwick. Cover designed by Kate Sinclair.
A Biblioasis Interview with Alice Chadwick
DB: Dark Like Under takes place over the course of a single day. What inspired this decision? Did you encounter any pitfalls (or surprising benefits) to the circadian form? Are there any other circadian books that inspired you?
AC: My novel is set in a school, and I’m fascinated by the ritualistic nature of the school day. The routines are familiar to us all but, from the distance of adulthood, can appear quite strange. Despite their repetitive quality, there are some school days that stand alone, that remain with us throughout life. I wanted to write about one of those days.
The idea of writing a novel based on a school day slotted into the circadian form in a way that felt entirely natural, even irresistible. The single day as a metaphor for the span of a human life has a rich history (I’m thinking of Shakespeare’s sonnet 73—“In me thou see’st the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west . . .”). In my novel, the teenage characters are still in the morning of their lives, moving towards the high, bright point; their teachers and parents feel the light dimming as the decades accumulate. I wanted to explore those distinct stages of life and, as we move through the day of the book, the structure itself carries some of that meaning.
Working with the circadian form was tremendously helpful in structuring the novel—I had a beginning and an end, as well as a natural high point. The one-day structure keeps the narrative fresh, the characters in the present moment and the whole thing moving forwards. There is, quite literally, a ticking clock at the heart of the book. Having those things in place allowed me to write very freely. In that sense, I found it unexpectedly liberating and didn’t feel any disadvantages—perhaps those are for readers to point out!
Before I started working on Dark Like Under, I hadn’t realised that a lot of the literature I love best takes a circadian form. Despite the constraints, it’s hugely flexible and seems to inspire innovation. At one end of the scale there is Katherine Mansfield’s short story sequence Prelude, a masterclass in brevity and restraint; at the other, there’s Joyce’s exuberant and encyclopedic Ulysses. My own favourite is Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway; a hundred years after it was written, it still has urgent things to say about female experience in middle age, motherhood and marriage, and about trauma. The spectre of death haunts all these works. Reading them, our appreciation of what it means to live through a single day and through a single life is heightened. They return us to our own daily existence with a sharpened perception of life’s beauty, strangeness and fragile value.
Photo: Alice Chadwick, author of Dark Like Under. Credit: Beth Boswell-Knight.
Even though the novel is focused on a single day, this day is perceived polyphonically—through multiple characters. I’m curious to know if this was always going to be the case. Do you have a favourite character, or has that favourite changed over the course of writing the novel?
When I began to write the book, I experimented with the first-person plural perspective—the collective “we.” The whole town has suffered a loss, and I was looking for a way to voice that shared grief. Gradually I realised that individual experiences were equally important, and I shifted to a more polyphonic approach, with each chapter drawing close to one character to observe their particular response (a close third-person perspective). Nevertheless, I wanted to retain something of that initial choral feeling. There is considerable social division in the town of the novel, as in 1980s society more broadly, and it felt important to have a plurality of voices, as far as that was feasible within the school.
Initially, I was writing only from the perspectives of the teenage girls and women. At a certain point, I saw that I needed to open it out further and include those of the boys and men. When I had this thought, I stood up from my desk and walked out of the house—I felt extremely ill-equipped to enter the minds of teenage boys! But it was one of the turning points of the book. A character like Kelly, who had initially functioned as a sort of irritant in the classroom, became quite different when given his own chapters. That took me by surprise—he is now one of my favourite people in the book.
I feel a great deal of tenderness for all my characters, but some were easier to write than others. Nicolas, for example—who is at sea in all the teenage drama and would just like to get on with his homework—flowed out of my pen. He could have taken over the novel! I also love Robin. Her life is far from easy but there is not a speck of self-pity in her. The art teacher, Sue Sharpe, is another character close to my heart. She is not conventionally heroic, or even particularly sympathetic, but she has endured. She attempts to communicate something of genuine value to the kids in her classroom and, despite the disappointments and compromises of her career, still carries the flame of her artistic life.
The 1980s serve as a backdrop for the novel. How much do you think the time period factors into the story? Do you think it would have made for a very different novel if it had been set, say, in the 2000s, or today?
I do think it would be different. The premise—that a teacher could die, and no real explanation be given, no support for staff or children be put in place—is, I hope, unthinkable today. The silence around “difficult” subjects such as death and mental health, gender and sexuality, felt almost total in the 1980s; there was a lack of vocabulary and openness about many things that we discuss more freely and fluently now. That said, some events are inexplicable. People, even those closest to us, can remain mysterious and unknowable. The book, in one sense, is an exploration of that.
The novel is underpinned by the tension between communal experience and social division in a small town. For that reason, the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, a period of growing inequality and social destabilisation, felt like the right backdrop for the book, even the necessary one. However, the debates of the 1980s remain pressing: how do we look after the most vulnerable in our communities? How do we share the resources of land, money and education?
I also really wanted to capture an “analog” way of being alive that has almost entirely disappeared now. The texture of life was so different in the 80s—the way we passed little handwritten notes around and did all our learning from books; how, if we wanted to phone someone, we had to stand in the hall and use the landline, where the whole family could hear. Photographs were rare; we didn’t walk around with cameras and films were expensive to process. It was a different way of being an individual and of experiencing time; as a teenager you might be alone or bored, isolated or idle, to an extent that is almost impossible now. That said, teenagers are teenagers. The excitement, defiance and uncertainty of those years belong to us all, whichever decade we grew up in.
Dark Like Under is so richly detailed and elaborate. It seems to go against the distracted, content-driven culture we live in. The level of your attentiveness is impressive. What are your writing habits like?
Thank you! One of the things I love in books—and not just books, in painting, photography, cinema too—is the noticing, the observation of small details that are everyday but at the same time surprising and telling. There are many ways of paying attention, but I love an immersive book, one that takes you wholeheartedly into a place, into the lives of its characters, and lets you have a long look around. It’s a slowing down, yes, and in that respect requires a level of close attention, but that, to me, feels generous and nourishing.
But to answer your question: my writing habits are very regular, very workaday. Every morning I get up, make coffee and go outside, often before London has fully woken up. I like to write in the garden, surrounded by my neighbour’s houses, by trees and birds. It’s a small patch of urban Eden! I work in cheap exercise books, which are often covered in soil and smudged by rain, but the work I can do by hand, early in the morning, seems freer and more unexpected than anything I can do on a screen. Later, I do go inside and work at my desk—I like to type things up and edit on my computer. In the late afternoon, I might go for a walk to clear my head, and sometimes I do other (paid) work. Evenings are for reading, and reading is very much part of writing, a crucial part.
I write every day and most days I struggle, but I’ve learnt that these dull, difficult days are necessary. They often herald a breakthrough, a dreamlike period when words finally flow and stray ideas come together.
I’m interested in the title, Dark Like Under. I love the cryptic imagery it inspires. Could you tell us about how you came to it?
The title came to me slowly, I had to wait for it. I’ve had this experience with poetry; it can take a long time for the right words to surface and find an order. I always knew that there would be “dark” in the title, however. In the western tradition, in the Bible or Dante, say, knowledge and goodness are often associated with light and illumination, but some of the most important lessons we need to learn, not to mention things of great mystery, nuance and beauty, come from places of darkness. It’s where ghosts, and Time itself, accumulate—sometimes in a literal sense, in the buried, archeological layers under our feet. The art teacher in the school tries to teach something of this to the kids: to draw a pebble, to describe a human face, requires a sensitivity to the shadows as well as the highlights. There is only so much that light can teach us. But it is, of course, a question of balance, of not being pulled under by the dark.
Have you read anything lately that you’d like to recommend?
I am halfway through Rose Tremain’s 1992 novel, Sacred Country. Told in multiple voices, it’s a portrait of a sleepy, slightly eccentric village and the story of a young girl who discovers, aged six, that she is Martin, not Mary. It’s funny and deeply touching, and I feel as though I’ve left behind friends every time I put it down.
I’ve also just finished James Agee’s A Death in the Family, a novel (as mine is) about a sudden death and how people live through those first hours and days. I now know that it’s a classic of American literature, but I hadn’t heard of it until a bookseller pressed a copy into my hands. I’m grateful that he did.
Named an RTE Book of the Week: “A masterclass in Irish storytelling.”
Listed as one of the Economist’s 40 best books published so far this year: “A powerful, poignant book.”
Reviewed in The Guardian: “Hugely satisfying . . . the novel’s baggy, complex, unfolding structure offers rich rewards.”
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UNMETby stephanie roberts was reviewed in a poetry feature in the Literary Review of Canada. The review will appear in their May print issue, and is available online here.
Emily Mernin writes,
“In alternately nervous and incisive modes, roberts explores the profound contradictions behind even the most clear-eyed criticisms or desires . . . With a resolute inward stare, roberts reveals the cumulative nature of life.”
UNMET was reviewed in The Woodlot on April 7, and you can read the full review here.
Chris Banks writes,
“[roberts’] language is ‘surprise-drenched’ . . . this fantastic book is a piling on of surprising images and poetic structures and creative desires allowing both reader and poet the opportunity to rise above the Dollar Store desolation and grief and human injustice that plague our society.”
UNMET was featured on the CBC Books list of “39 Canadian poetry collections coming out in spring 2025.” You can check out the full list here.
On BookBanning by Ira Wells was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review will appear in their May print issue, and is available online here.
Keith Garebian writes,
“With this slim volume, Wells lays out cogent arguments against culture warriors who continue to warp our children’s relationship to literature . . . Wells persuasively explains how book banning reduces and devalues art and how it constitutes an attack on intellectual autonomy and on ‘your right to determine the future of your own mind.'”
Ira Wells spoke on an episode of TVO’s The Agenda for the segment “How Does Book Banning Hurt Democracy?” You can watch the full segment here.
Don Gillmor, author of On Oil, was interviewed on TVO’s The Agenda on April 10. You can watch the full segment “Should Canada Rethink Its Relationship to Oil?” here.
Don Gillmor wrote an article, “Why Trump Needs Canadian Oil,” for Maclean’s on April 8. Read the full article here.
On Oil was also featured on the CBC Books list of “29 Canadian books you should be reading in April.” You can view the full list here.
Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen (translated by Catherine Khordoc) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review will appear in their May print issue, and is available online here.
Amanda Perry writes,
“Abdelmoumen’s work . . . demonstrates the good faith conversations being held within a cultural scene that is both local and transnational in its outlook.”
The PassengerSeat by Vijay Khurana was listed in the Guardian‘s “Best Australian books out in April.” The list was published on April 4, and can be viewed here.
Steph Harmon calls it,
“A tense and gripping power struggle of toxic masculinity, as the teenagers push each other further and further down a violent road of no return.”
The Passenger Seat was reviewed in Rabble on April 10, in the article “Walk like a man: Toxic masculinity in crime fiction, fact and spoken word.” You can read the full review here.
“The structure of the book and its lyrical prose combine to make telling points about toxic male bonding and its relationship to sexist violence, all without any counterproductive lecturing or explicit judgements. The magisterial way that Khurana uses the classic elements of noir crime writing to challenge and subvert those very elements is impressive.”
“Former political journalist Mark Bourrie’s new book, Ripper, is a bracing reminder of some of the reputations Poilievre has ruined, the malicious fictions he has promoted, [and] the tiresome slogans he stitches into every utterance.”
Ripper and author Mark Bourrie were featured on Vancouver CityNews’s NewsRadio Bookshelf on April 13. You can listen to the short interview or read the article here.
John Ackermann notes,
“The book is a more pointed treatment of its subject than Andrew Lawton’s Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life, which came out last year when the Tories were still riding high in the polls.”
Ripper was mentioned in Dan Garner’s Substack as a book to check out. You can read the full article here.
“If it weren’t for Mark and a small number of others willing to make sacrifices, popular Canadian history would have vanished entirely from book stores.”
Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press on April 5. Check out the full review here!
Ron Robinson writes,
“Armstrong offers fine, astute turns of phrase in her writing . . . The reader’s delight in the stories may range, then, from ‘you go, girl’ to a censorious ‘it will all end in tears’ depending on your age and experience.”
Question Authority by Mark Bourrie was reviewed in the New York Journal of Books, which can be read here.
Karen R. Koenig writes,
“A master of words who is well-versed in philosophy, political science, sociology, and psychology, [Mark Kingwell] writes with deep affection and hope for humanity and openly shares his darkest and brightest moments along life’s bumpy road. Though this is a serious book requiring thoughtful reading, Kingwell’s wit will make readers laugh out loud at him and at themselves.”
Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins won 3rd Prize in the Alcuin Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada’s Poetry category! The award was given to the book’s designer, Natalie Olsen. You can view the full list of winners here.
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Mark Bourrie’s Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre has quickly become a national bestseller; this week, it sits at #3 on the Canadian Nonfiction list. Despite initial worry that the election call would hinder the media’s ability or willingness to cover a critical biography of the Opposition leader, it’s great to see Bourrie’s hard work pay off. And we’re especially grateful for all the journalists who are showing up to write thoughtful, non-partisan coverage during this increasingly terrifying period. We’re also grateful to the people who are taking the time to read books like Ripper ahead of election day (or any day): we all have to stay vigilant.
“Poilievre is a pro-American libertarian who moralizes the sufferings of the marginalized, insists the free market has inherent genius, drives wedges between the regions of the country, and exploits class envy. By the early winter of 2025, the political gears of the country changed. The political fight in Canada quickly became about who was best to face the external threat and whose ideas were best to help Canadian families and businesses at a time of real danger. On April 28, we’ll know if his brand of politics will survive the very crisis it claimed to prepare for.” —Mark Bourrie, excerpted from Ripper
Globe and Mail
“Mark Bourrie has produced a searing but convincing critique of the Conservative Leader’s shortcomings that will give pause to anyone outside the diehard Poilievre base.” —Charlotte Gray
“In his pull-no-punches book, Mr. Bourrie portrays Mr. Poilievre as one serious ripper: mean, sneering, insulting, truth-evading, skilled at whipping up mass anger.” —Marsha Lederman
“If Pierre Poilievre is going to win, shake [the comparison to Trump] he must. This book, with all its pungent reminders of his record, will make it harder to do.” —Lawrence Martin
“‘It’s an intense subject, the future of Canada—there isn’t anything more important than that, and at a time of revolution, which I think we are in,’ [Bourrie] says . . . The story was there; he just needed to collate the pieces.” —Josh O’Kane
Photo: Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre by Mark Bourrie. Cover designed by Ingrid Paulson.
Toronto Star
Bestsellers Lists: #3 on the Canadian Nonfiction list, and #7 on the Original Nonfiction list.
Interviewwith Mark Bourrie and Stephen Maher, excerpted:
Stephen Maher: One of the pleasures of your book is the attention it pays to the social and economic forces Poilievre has harnessed. You argue persuasively that Trudeau let Poilievre become a champion for the working class by neglecting their concerns and failing to communicate. But every incumbent government around the world had a similar crisis. Was it really Trudeau’s failure, or was it just that the situation created an opening for a person such as Poilievre?
Mark Bourrie: I think it’s a systemic failure among centrists, people on the left and even the union movement to maintain a good, strong relationship with shop floors. And we saw that folks realized there was this great big working-class vote out there that wasn’t being tended to. And the Liberals, after the first year of COVID, could not communicate with anybody. They were just so disconnected. Canadian conservatives went to the United States and learned this stuff, but it was also something that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was able to pick up on. It’s something that the Brexiteers were able to pick up on, as well as the AFD in Germany.
“Despite [the rush to print], the work never seems rushed. It is lengthy and historically detailed while relying on media, secondary sources and parliamentary debates.” —Christopher Adams
“This book is a phenomenal effort, carefully researched and nicely written. Ripper should be widely read by everyone who cares about the value of casting an informed vote on April 28.” —Michael Harris
“Every Liberal in their war room, every journalist covering the campaign and—should he win—every stakeholder doing business with an eventual Poilievre government owes it to themselves to read Bourrie’s Ripper so that they can have a clear picture of who Poilievre is, how he came to be, and how that past is almost certain to shape his decision-making going forward.” —Jamie Carroll
“In a scathing but comprehensive recent biography, Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, the historian Mark Bourrie points out that his [Poilievre’s] thinking on most subjects has not advanced much since adolescence.” —Michael Ledger-Lomas
“By positioning Poilievre in the context of the global social and economic cleavages that permitted him him to attain power, Bourrie transcends a simple biography and creates a snapshot of our riven historical moment, one that should prove illuminating for anyone looking around in abject confusion and wondering how we got to this particular point.” —Steven W. Beattie
“Ripper has no business being so detailed and wide-ranging, so authoritative and convincing, so brilliantly analytical and colourfully entertaining.”
On Substack:
“Bourrie writes an honest and comprehensive account of Poilievre’s and offers a look at where he might take the country. The book is no hagiography, but nor is it a hatchet job (a lesser author might have been less disciplined). It’s a fitting, if disconcerting, election primer.” —David Moscrop
“His [Mark Bourrie’s] latest book RIPPER isn’t just a biography—it’s a field guide to fascism wrapped in a Canadian flag soaked in Axe body spray.” —Dean Blundell
“[Ripper] is far from a hatchet job. Bourrie appreciates Poilievre’s cunning and instinct for the jugular—he just doesn’t like him too much.” —Ethan Phillips, Oversight
“Bourrie’s critical of Poilievre . . . But he reflects on Poilievre’s strengths and weaknesses, informed by close observation of the Conservative leader’s entire career.” —Paul Wells
“Bourrie’s style is accessible, the prose is clear and sparse . . . Bourrie’s dry wit brings a chuckle now and then.” —Margaret Shkimba
Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 8, 2024), was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal! The review was published online on November 14, and is available to read here.
Critic Sam Sacks writes,
“GauZ’ avoids moralizing and is always alive to the humor and peculiarity of his stories. There are very funny scenes of the young Marxist speechifying to his unimpressed elders about the class struggle and the ‘retching of the earth.’ (Frank Wynne’s translation from the French shows a deft touch with Anouman’s malapropisms.)”
Comrade Papa was also a bookseller choice in Electric Literature’s article “The Best Books of the Fall, According to Indie Booksellers”! The list was published November 1, and you can check it out here.
Josh Cook (Porter Square Books) wrote,
“A funhouse mirror version of the colonial adventure story, Comrade Papa pokes, prods, & mocks a whole suite of ideologies & assumptions. GauZ’ has an exuberant, nimble style & an off-center imagination that will keep readers on their toes.”
Caroline Adderson, author of A Way to BeHappy (Sep 10, 2024), was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter! The interview with Antonio Michael Downing was posted November 15, and you can read it here.
A Way to Be Happy was also reviewed in FreeFall! The review was posted online on November 3, and you can read it here.
Lori Hahnel writes,
“As the author of many books of fiction and non-fiction, the breadth of Adderson’s writing experience is evident in her craft. This clever and meticulously crafted collection from a writer who has mastered her art is a pleasure to read.”
“A remarkable crime trilogy of doublings and disappearance . . . These are crime novels in which identities are unstable, evidence is slippery and solutions are obscure.”
A Case of Matricide was also reviewed in the Miramichi Reader on November 14, which you can check out here.
Luke Francis Beirne writes,
“The story in A Case of Matricide is intricately woven, with layers of significance throughout . . . Graeme Macrae Burnet has elevated the detective novel to incredible heights.”
Near Distance by Hanna Stoltenberg, translated by Wendy H Gabrielsen (Jan 14, 2025), was reviewed in Kirkus Reviews. The review was published in their November 15 print issue and is available to read online here.
Kirkus writes,
“Grimly fascinating . . . infused with a sense of dread, and observed in microscopic detail from a bemused and calculated remove. Page after page leaves the reader anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Feb 4, 2025), was given a starred review in Kirkus Reviews! The review was posted online on November 9, and will appear in their December 15 print issue. Read it here.
Kirkus writes,
“A moving story of loss and courage told in prose as crisp and clear as the Icelandic landscape where it takes place. . . Stefánsson writes like an epic poet of old about the price the natural world exacts on humans, but he’s not without sympathy or an ability to find affirming qualities in difficult situations.”
The 2024 Seth’s Christmas Ghost Storieswere featured on So Many Damn Books podcast for the Holiday Gift Guide episode! Listen to the full episode here.
Host Christopher Hamelin says,
“Awesome pocket editions of forgotten horror stories, or mystery stories, from the past, in this perfect set . . . This ‘Ghost Story for Christmas’ series is some of the most delightful reading that I do all year.”
The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books. The review was published online, and is available to read here.
Timothy Niedermann writes,
“A moving portrayal of a young girl’s efforts to grow out of a state of melancholy and confusion and acquire self-confidence and assertiveness, despite her young age.”
“Readers of Old Romantics will be swept up in the verve of Armstrong’s storytelling, but the deeper purpose of the humour, as with all good comedic writing, is that of connection, of recognition: this crazy thing called life, tell me you feel it too? The more we laugh, the closer we are to tears. Old Romantics is a collection big on feeling, on living, romanticism with a capital R.”
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The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was reviewed in the New York Times on November 2! The review is available to read online here.
Wilson Wong writes,
“The book is a revealing document of a relationship so intimate as to be sacred: that of the writer and the page. It’s a reminder that note-taking is an act of noticing, of being present and showing up to the blank paper, again and again, and discovering what may arise there.”
“It’s difficult to make happiness interesting. Caroline Adderson, however, succeeds with stylish skill. She creates sympathetic characters struggling with inner complexities—what it feels like to be a disappointment, or to not be believed, or to lead a passionless life; always offering, though, an encounter providing a respite from loneliness or isolation.”
Anne Hawk, author of The Pages of the Sea (Sep 17, 2024), was interviewed on The Conversation podcast (here) on October 21, and also talked about her debut novel on the Bookspo podcast (here) on October 16.
May Our Joy Endure was also reviewed in the Montreal Review of Books on October 30. Check out the full review here.
Marisa Grizenko writes,
“Like Bruegel and Blais, Lambert uses a large cast of characters to depict society’s complexities. His gaze is oceanic, homing in on individuals and zooming out to the systems within which they operate.”
A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Nov 12, 2024) was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times as part of their list of “10 books to add to your reading list in November.” The article was published online on November 1, and you can read it here.
Bethanne Patrick writes,
“Burnet’s trilogy concludes with a mystery about what we put up with in mystery narratives . . . It’s smart, quirky and fun.”
Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories(Oct 29, 2024) were featured on the Total Christmas Podcast on October 26, and you can listed to the segment (starting at 16:00) here.
Host Jack Ford calls the trio,
“Delightful little books . . . it’s something that people that love Christmas might enjoy, reviving that old tradition of Christmas ghost stories.”
Podolo, one of this year’s three stories, was read in full on the Christmas Past Podcast by Brian Earl. You can listen to the full episode here.
Grab all three Seth’s Christmas Ghost Storieshere!
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Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 8, 2024), was reviewed in the New York Times! The review was published online on Oct 8, and you can check it out here.
Nadifa Mohamed writes,
“Comrade Papa incorporates many small shards of history and storytelling into an overall gleaming mosaic.”
The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was reviewed in the New Yorker! The review was published online on Oct 14, and in their Oct 21 print edition. You can read it here.
The New Yorker writes,
“Allen’s narrative moves fluidly as he recounts the evolution of the notebook’s use.”
A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson (Sep 10, 2024) was reviewed in Scout Magazine’s Book Club Vol. 17! Caroline was also interviewed on Oct 23. You can check out their review here and the full interview here.
Thalia Stopa writes,
“This well-seasoned author has managed to steer clear of the hazards of kitsch or gratuitousness to produce a near-perfect collection about a bunch of very imperfect yet entirely plausible characters and scenarios.”
A Way to Be Happy was also reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press! The review was published online on Oct 19, and you can read it here.
Carrie Hatland writes,
“When seeking happiness, there is always a cost. The journey is never simplistic, and when it comes to complexity, Adderson is a master.”
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The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was excerpted in Lit Hub on September 9. You can check out the excerpt, “Paper Trail: On the Cross-Cultural Evolution of the Notebook” here.
Roland Allen was interviewed by Piya Chattopadhyay for CBC Sunday Magazine. The interview was posted on September 8, and you can check it out in full here.
A Way to Be Happy was also highlighted in the Georgia Straight as one of the five books on the Giller longlist by BC authors. You can check out that article here.
A Way to Be Happy was reviewed in the BC Review on September 4. You can read the full review online here.
Reviewer Bill Paul writes,
“For each story, Adderson expertly develops a detailed setting . . . [and] the author carefully constructs vivid characters from every walk of life. Each one of them making their way to some undetermined fate.”
May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler (Sep 3, 2024), was mentioned in the New York Times in an interview with writer Garth Greenwell. The article was published online on September 5, and you can read the it here.
Kev Lambert was interviewed by Steven W. Beattie about May Our Joy Endure for Quill and Quire, published online on September 5, 2024. You can read the full interview here.
Lambert says in the interview,
“I wanted to challenge the idea that humanizing the person you critique is giving them credit. We hear this sometimes in political or media circles. But I think it’s a fake or a wrong idea . . . I’m starting to think that we should try to have empathy. Which doesn’t mean stop criticizing or saying everything’s fine because we have empathy. But I think it gives you an understanding of humans that is more accurate and more useful for political engagement.”
May Our Joy Endure was listed as one of The Walrus‘s “Best Books of Fall 2024.” The article was published online on September 4, 2024, and you can read it here.
Contributor Michelle Cyca writes,
“Who hasn’t wished a little divine retribution upon the ultrarich for all their sins? Kevin Lambert’s third novel, nimbly translated by Donald Winkler, is an icy, cerebral social novel . . . showcasing Lambert’s gimlet eye for the delusions and designer preferences of the 1 percent.”
May Our Joy Endure also appeared on the Daily Kos‘s list of “Contemporary Fiction Views: A new book season is about to begin,” posted online September 3. You can check out the full article here.
The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was included in the Toronto Star‘s list of “25 books worthy of a place at the top of your to-read pile.” The list was published on September 1, 2024, and you can view it here.
The Utopian Generation by Pepetela, translated by David Brookshaw (Aug 13, 2024), was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review will appear in print in their October issue.
The LRC writes,
“A classic post-colonial text . . . This sweeping novel, which moves in roughly ten-year increments from 1961 to 1991, tells the steadily absorbing story of ‘how a generation embarks on a glorious struggle for independence and then destroys itself.'”
“[A] fascinating and engrossing tale . . . a meticulously researched book . . . It told me, on nearly every page, something I did not know about the history of this province, of the lives lived here in the 17th century.”
Crosses in the Sky was also mentioned in an interview between actress & director Kaniehtiio Horn and interviewer Jim Slotek in Original Cin, posted on September 5. Check out the article here.
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet was included in the Globe and Mail‘s list of “Books we’re reading and loving in September.” The list was published on September 5, and you can check it out here.
Ian Brown writes,
“Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Case Study (longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize) is the best type of novel: the sharply crafted, deeply intelligent but compulsively readable kind . . . As soon as you stop reading, you’ll want to read it again.”
Preorder Burnet’s forthcoming book, A Case of Matricide, here!
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The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal! The article was published online on August 23, and is available to read here.
Reviewer Meghan Cox Gurdon writes,
“Bold and thrilling . . . informative and uplifting, The Notebook may leave you feeling that you should chuck away your smartphone, pick up a nice, clean journal and start jotting.”
The Notebook was featured in Publishers Weekly‘s list of “Eight New Books Indie Booksellers Want You to Read.” The list was posted on August 16, and you can check it out here.
Phoenix Books book buyer Laurel Rhame wrote,
“I love obscure, strange, or hyper-focused histories, and this is the first history of the notebook—a tool that completely changed humanity. I can already tell this is going to be my big gift book for the holiday season. It’s perfect for the writers, artists, or engineers in your life. And of course for the history buffs.”
The Notebook also appeared on Kirkus Reviews‘ list, “150 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall.” The article was posted online on August 20, and you can read it here.
The Utopian Generation by Pepetela, translated by David Brookshaw (Aug 12, 2024), was featured in The African Report. The review and interview with Pepetela was published online on August 12, and you can read it here.
Reviewer Olivia Snaije calls it:
“A groundbreaking book . . . In The Utopian Generation, perhaps closest to [Pepetela’s] personal experience, the characters fight for the liberation of Angola with the hope of building an egalitarian society. Through the individual characters and the choices they make, the reader makes a 30-year journey through the complexity of decolonisation in Angola.”
The Utopian Generation was also featured on The Daily Kos‘s list of “Contemporary Fiction Views: It’s new books day!” The list was posted on August 13, and you can check it out here.
“[A Case of Matricide] serves up a tantalizing blend of psychological thrills and small-town life . . . a convincing depiction of bureaucratic and provincial rot. Fans of the series will be pleased.”
Sorry About the Fire by Colleen Coco Collins (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published in their September print issue.
The LRC writes,
“Sorry About the Fire introduces readers to an intrepid thinker and original writer who seems to relish nature as much as her Irish, French, and Odawa heritage. If Collins can teach readers just one thing, surely it’s a sense of surprise, so that we too might say, ‘I’m up in my head / tread, tread, tread, tread, / and you can’t hold a candle to this.'”
Mark Anthony Jarman, author of Burn Man: Selected Stories (Nov 21 2023), was interviewed on the podcast Craftwork. The episode aired on August 8, and you can listen to the conversation in full here.
Deborah Dundas, author of On Class (May 9, 2023), was interviewed by Nathan Whitlock on the podcast What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books. The episode aired on August 19, and you can listen to it here.
The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (Aug 1, 2023) appeared in 49th Shelf‘s list “Astonish and Renew: Books With a Sense of Play.” The list was posted on August 22, and you can check it out here.
Rod Moody-Corbett calls it:
“[A] brilliant second novel . . . expansive and epic and intellectually enduring.”
Check out the companion novel, Forgotten Work, here!
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Hello,Horse by Richard Kelly Kemick (Aug 6, 2024) was reviewed in The Miramichi Reader! The review was published on August 5, and you can read it in full here.
Reviewer Brett Josef Grubisic writes,
“Restless, exuberant, meandering, funny, inventive, and really quite bonkers . . . Either Kemick is one of those rare, savant-like authors whose outpouring is naturally (and enviably) stylish, or he tempers what seems to be a natural, baroque extravagance with careful, word-by-word revision. Whatever the case, readers will notice—and ought to appreciate—those sentences . . . All in all, Hello, Horse gallops and canters, dazzles and makes a splash. Prepare to be wowed.”
Hello, Horse was also reviewed by Jessica Poon in The BC Review on August 8, which you can check out here. Poon writes,
“Overall, Kemick has balanced visually rich absurdity . . . and the general malaise of youth with admirable, poetic flair. This is an unapologetically unique slice of Canadiana.”
Lit Hub also featured the collection on their list of “26 new books out today” on August 6—you can check out the full list here. The list features Burn Man: Selected Stories author Mark Anthony Jarman’s blurb of the collection:
“Hello, Horse is beguiling and wondrous, with talking dogs and nuns at the end of the world, images that linger with strange pleasure; Richard Kelly Kemick is a stellar wordsmith.”
A Way to BeHappy by Caroline Adderson (Sep 10, 2024) was featured in Quill & Quire‘s “2024 Fall Preview: Short Fiction, Graphic Novels, and Poetry.” The preview was posted on July 31, and you can check out the full list here.
Cassandra Drudi writes,
“The characters in these stories from veteran of the form Caroline Adderson range from thieving addicts to a Russian hit man to a middle-aged man facing a routine colonoscopy. Through these varied characters and their disparate conflicts, Adderson explores happiness—how we find it and what it means when we do.”
Cocktailby Lisa Alward (Sep 12, 2023) was included in 49th Shelf‘s list of “Short Stories for Summer Reading.” The article was published on August 8, and you can read it in full here.
Danila Botha writes,
“The winner of this year’s Danuta Gleed award, this collection is absolutely masterful. When a writer writes with such precision and authorial control, it’s such a joy to read their work. There’s a stylistic elegance that I admire so much, the way that Alward disrupts domesticity, the tensions inherent in her stories, her expert pacing and her beautiful descriptions are all incredibly impressive.”
Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 8, 2024), was reviewed by Lara Pawson in the Times Literary Supplement on August 1. You can read the full review here.
Pawson writes,
“Only a bold writer in command of their talent could take on such a perilous and vast subject and come out, with laughter and love, on top . . . If you are foolish enough to open this book with a set of assumptions about where it will go, prepare to be wrong-footed . . . Expect to see GauZ’ back on the shortlists with this superlative work of fiction.”
Alex Pugsley, author of The Education of Aubrey McKee(May 7, 2024), was interviewed on Toronto Met Radio’s “All My Books”! The interview aired on July 31, and you can listen to it (beginning at 31:20) here.
