The Dad Rock that Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
Niko Stratis’s The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman is a book for this moment when we’re re-evaluating algorithmic curation and rediscovering the human connections in our playlists.
Essays
Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the Twenty-first Century by Derek Beaulieu
Beaulieu asks, why are we writing?
Vessel: The Shape of Absent Bodies by Dani Netherclift
I was very intrigued by Vessel, Dani Netherclift’s work on the drowning deaths of her father and brother.
Nothing at All by Olivia Tapiero, translated by Kit Schluter
Nothing at All, Olivia Tapiero’s collection of vignettes exploring loss, illness, desire, and pain was translated from French by Kit Schluter for this edition.
Hide and Sikh: Letters from a Life in Brown Skin by Sunny Dhillon
Through letters to his firstborn daughter, Jaya, Dhillon shares his experiences as a brown-skinned Canadian breaking through an industry that still cries for more diversity and inclusion.
Walking, Trailing Shadows — Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road by Ken Wilson
Ken Wilson’s Walking the Bypass is a redemptive journey through some of the least redeeming landscapes an urban walker might visit. Part of what makes the book compelling is how well its style matches its subject.
In the Field by Sadiqa de Meijer
What I wasn’t expecting about In the Field was just how much I love it. It is a remarkable book: thoughtful, nuanced, beautifully written, and thoroughly researched.
Razing Palestine edited by Leila Marshy
As the world nervously watches the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (one where the killing of Palestinians is still happening, albeit at a much slower rate), we have to begin examining how “never again” became hollowed out and meaningless.
Wrestling with Cadence by Dennis Lee
You may know Dennis Lee by the lyrically nonsensical poem and book, Alligator Pie, which came out in 1974.
On Book Banning by Ira Wells
Canada’s annual Freedom to Read Week takes place during the last week of February. With this year marking the 40th anniversary of this important observance, it seems most appropriate that this book, part of Biblioasis’ “Field Notes” series, should be published midway through the week when we pay closer attention to the banning of books.
Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene by Guy Vanderhaeghe
The personas writers invent (often subconsciously) for their non-fiction usually attempt or pretend to show more or less of the private self. In Because Somebody Asked Me To, bemedaled and oft-rewarded Guy Vanderhaeghe favours a straight speaking tone, whether reviewing Richard Ford or talking to historians.
The Canadian Shields: Stories and Essays by Carol Shields, edited by Nora Foster Stovel
Her estate has recently emptied the cupboards with a release of Shields’s previously unpublished and/or uncollected stories and essays.
Five Manifestos for the Beautiful World by Phoebe Bosewell, Saidiya Hartman, Janaína Oliveira, Joseph M. Pierce, and Cristina Rivera Garza, with an introduction by Christina Sharpe
Hosted at York University, the free, public events gather writers, artists, and thinkers from various disciplines and geographies to discuss the most pressing issues of our time. The insights shared at the live and streamed events are later transcribed and expanded in artful books published by Alchemy, a Knopf Canada publishing program, in collaboration with York University.
Bait & Switch by Jim Johnstone
Do you ever wish poets would include essays to situate their poems? Some frank prose that ponders what their own poetry comes out of or means to do? We can’t follow every crumb trailer life, and not every aesthetic reaches universally. Consequently this book of essays, Bait & Switch: Essays, Reviews, Conversations, and views on …
The Coincidence Problem: Social Dispatches 1999-2022 by Stephen Osborne
Stephen Osborne is a long-time British Columbia-based literary raconteur and starter of bookish projects. In 1971,
