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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!

Biblioasis 2017 Media Year in Review

2017 was a big year for us here at the Bibliomanse!  We released a ton of great new titles, two new Bibliofolk arrived as Casey Plett and Jonny Flieger joined the team, Biblioasis books made it onto some very prestigious awards lists, and we had a lot of great coverage in the media. Here are just a few highlights of some of the spectacular reviews and coverage our books received this past year:

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Alejandro Saravia’s Red, Yellow, Green had a great review in Montreal Review of Books“a labyrinthine narrative that lodges like shrapnel—bracing and painful…playfully absurdist, funny, brilliant, and courageous… Saravia’s accomplishment in Red, Yellow, Green is to make you care, and deeply”
Montreal Review of Books: History vs. Oblivion

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Kevin Hardcastle and John Irving spent some time “Bro-ing down” at the International Festival of Authors together. Kevin’s new novel In the Cage has been collecting heaps of praise from places such as Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, National Post, and Foreword Reviews.
In Conversation: Kevin Hardcastle & John Irving
Maclean’s: Five Must Read Books for October
Toronto Star: Twenty-Five must-read books this fall
National Post: Book Review

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The Vancouver Sun recognized their Vancouver daughter, Cynthia Flood, and her new short story collection What Can You Do, saying it  “…makes for page-turning reading…Flood’s writing is sparse and direct, and tackles the challenging topics unfolding in her stories with welcome clarity.”

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Quill & Quire wrote that David Huebert’s Peninsula Sinking “…establishes Huebert as one of Canada’s most impressive young writers … the stories are far-reaching, but tightly woven, each focused on characters in significant moments of development or change.”
Quill & Quire Review

 

 

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The late Norman Levine’s collected short stories, I Don’t Want to Know Anyone Too Well, took some people by surprise this year. André Forget wrote in The Walrus “If Levine lacks for a Canadian readership, it could be in part because there is no definitive, breakout collection of his stories…that might change with I Don’t Want to Know Anyone Too Well. If great writing has a mark, surely this is it.”
Ian McGillis raised the stakes even higher for Levine, writing in The Montreal Gazette that Levine’s short stories should be compared to Gallant, Munro, and even Chekhov, believing “Norman Levine deserves it and his time has come.”
The Walrus: Will a Posthumous Story Collection Help Canada Forgive Norman Levine?
Montreal Gazette: Neglected story master Norman Levine gets his due in new collection

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 Robyn Sarah’s long-awaited selection of poems, Wherever We Mean to Be, was named one of CBC books’ “Canadian Poetry Collections to Watch For” and Anita Lahey wrote a beautiful profile on Sarah for The Walrus.
CBC: 16 Canadian poetry collections to watch for
The Walrus: Robyn Sarah’s Exquisitely Untrendy Poetry

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The Toronto Star wrote of Molly Peacock’s The Analyst, that “The poems bear witness to loss and change in the lives of two women, but they also offer a remarkable account of the restorative power of creativity… [Peacock’s] poetry’s orderly grace can seem paradoxical when she’s describing intense, chaotic emotions. But that lyrical craft is exactly what makes these poems resonate.”
Toronto Star: Poetry transforms Molly Peacock’s relationship with her analyst

 

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Even celebrities couldn’t keep their hands off of Biblioasis books this year!  Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex in the City fame raved about Carys Davies, saying  “Oh my God! Oh my God! It was so great! The Redemption of Galen Pike. A collection of short stories. I never read short stories. This book is so wonderful. One of the clerks at Three Lives Bookstore convinced me to get that book. It’s fantastic!”
Sarah Jessica Parker & The Redemption of Galen Pike
The Redemption of Galen Pike was also an Indie Next pick and a Women’s National Book Association pick for their National Reading Group Month Great Group Reads 2017 List.
National Reading Group: Great Group Reads
Indiebound List

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The long-form review lives on over at Music and Literature. It’s a disservice to their careful and thoughtful review of Elise Levine’s Blue Field to excerpt such a short quote but needs must. Hannah Leclair writes “Reading the novel is a sensation akin to drifting weightlessly beneath the surface of the text…dazzling, textured, tightly woven.”
Music & Literature Review

The Winnipeg Review agreed, saying “Elise Levine’s new novel takes place in a state of not suspense, but suspension. It is set, tellingly, in the rough space between two deaths in the protagonist’s life—first Marilyn’s parents, back to back, then her best friend. The novel ceaselessly evokes the hanging feeling of being deep underwater: all is muted, slow, and yet sensation is almost unbearably heightened … Levine is, undeniably, an outstanding wordsmith. Her writing style moves in multiple directions, making high stakes out of small movements while turning panic into poetry.”

Winnipeg Review

In The New York Times

The Newspaper of Record took notice of a number of Biblioasis books this year. The New York Times featured glowing reviews for Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse, Mark Kingwell’s Fail Betterand Jorge Carrion’s Bookshops.

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The Lighthouse—New York Times’ On the Road in Germany, Accompanied by Troubling Memories
Fail Better—New York Times’ Now Batting: 14 New Baseball Books
Fail Better—New York Times’  How to Throw a Baseball
Bookshops—New York Times’ A Love Affair With Bookstores

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Biblioasis’ Awards

 

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Author, editor, and Bibliofriend John Metcalf won an Ottawa Book Award for his collection The Museum at the End of the World. Metcalf also edited Biblioasis’ successful relaunch of Best Canadian Stories (Biblioasis authors David Huebert, Paige Cooper, Cynthia Flood, K.D. Miller & Grant Buday are among those included in the anthology!).
2017 Ottawa Book Awards

 

Patricia Young was a finalist for the Victoria Butler Book Prize for her collection of poems Short Takes on the Apocalypse.
Victoria Butler Book Prize

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Boundary, written by Andrée A. Michaud and translated from the French by Donald Winkler, was named to the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. World Literature Today says Boundary is “a haunting novel, rich with the details of the families’ daily lives and brilliant internal monologue, but the translation doesn’t draw attention to itself, a common flaw in translators too conscious of the masterful prose they are rendering. This is particularly appropriate here as Michaud’s remarkable writing seems entirely relaxed, belying what can only be very meticulously composed. Boundary has been recognized by a number of prizes in Canada, including the author’s second Governor General’s Award for Fiction. She deserves to be better known as one of the best writers in North America.”

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Scotia Bank Giller Prize: 2017 Long List Announced
World Literature Today: Book Review

And last but not least, Elaine Dewar was a Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist for her controversial book The Handover: How Bigwigs and Bureaucrats Transferred Canada’s Best Publisher and the Best Part of Our Literary Heritage to a Foreign Multinational. The book is all about the shady backroom deals that went on in order to package McClelland & Stewart off to international megapublisher Random House, robbing Canadians of one of the most definitively Canadian presses in the name of bigger profits and global monopolization.
Read the Maclean’s article on the deal and Dewar’s book here!

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Phew. All that and we’ve barely skimmed the surface. There’s so much more to discover–all of our authors have been killing it and there’s so much great coverage and great responses to their amazing work out there.  Come down to the shop or stumble around the website here and find out more.  Congratulations to all our amazing Biblioasis authors and thank you so much to all our readers!  See you in the New Year!