Grandpa Pike may not have “seen it all,” but he has a lifetime of encounters-both serious and humourous-from his life in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia that make for terrific reading.
There’s still time for a road trip (I’ve got one coming up) before it gets cold and wintery and all the other conditions under which sane people (read, non-Canadians, especially non-Western Canadians) stay off the road. When planning for a road trip, author Kelley Jo Burke has the following suggestions for the anxious traveller.
Reduced to DJing rural weddings, Tony Vicar feels the bite of failure. A frustrated and failed musician, unable to discern why he has not ascended to stardom, his only defence is to see the world through the lens of gallows humour, absurdism, and black comedy.
Those who enjoy appreciating cutting, witty, and sometimes dark humour with a dash of philosophical thought mixed in will find much to like in this Miriam Toews novel.
“Sarah Tolmie’s Disease is a strangely funny book about fictitious diseases and psychological conditions. Presented in a scholarly tone that resembles a series of academic case studies, this book looks at some bizarre ailments that range from scavenging, a psychological affliction in which people compulsively move into old houses, to a poor guy who developed an allergy to comedy.
Within Don’t Be Talkin’ you’ll find stories and recitations told by the incomparable performer Harry Ingram.
In her sure-handed debut volume of short fiction, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, Maria Reva writes with an insider’s familiarity about the last days of the Soviet Union and what followed in the months and years after the Communist regime’s ignominious collapse.
Bill Arnott reflects back on his “private” audience with the Dalai Lama.
Who would have thought that a single dose of “cold and sinus” medication and a quick trip to the supermarket would unleash a series of unfortunate events for newly retired, Henry Puddester. The movie-star handsome civil servant just wanted to ride off into the sunset on his 1970 Triumph motorcycle, but instead, the freshly minted …
Well, well, well. Jane Doucet, you have done it again. Just like your first novel, The Pregnant Pause, you have given your reader delightful, multi-faceted characters and laugh out loud passages that made this reader blush. The title of this book could not be more appropriate for what a reader will encounter within its 267 …
Carolyn Bennett’s debut novel Please Stand By is a fast-paced story about a woman trying to save the public television station in Edmonton where she freelances at. When a corporate man from Toronto is recruited to make changes to the Alberta Broadcasting System (ABS) and threatens the protagonist Suzanne Foley’s livelihood and those of her …
Six years later, with my pet Steve-the-African-tree-frog, I headed off to grad school, a four-thousand-kilometre drive. Late on the third day, I was stopped for speeding. It was starless dark and the officer used a flashlight to approach our car. I had my license out. Steve was on the dash in his Mason jar. The …
Fifteen years ago Wonderful Magical Words, my first book, was published, raising twenty grand for Make-A-Wish Foundation, for which I’m eternally grateful. Here’s a passage I hope you enjoy, The Story of Steve … “How long do they live?” they’d ask. To which I’d shrug. I imagined Steve would be part of my life as …
Jerry Levy’s quirky narratives provide a high-spirited alternative perspective on the crushing emotional isolation and myriad pressures that often accompany modern urban life. The fourteen stories in The Quantum Theory of Love and Madness, Levy’s follow-up to his 2013 collection Urban Legend, also frequently stretch the boundaries of narrative plausibility and occasionally veer into pure fantasy. …
Skin House got me with this line on its back cover: “Skin House is a story about two guys who end up in the same bar they started out in.” I thought, sweet, a kind of modern Waiting for Godot story. Wrong. But oh, so good in what it does do. Take a down-and-out guy …
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Nicholas Selig, Editor-in-Chief
