by Lynn Coady When I’m choosing books to read, I do my best to pick things I think I’ll enjoy. I like to think I’m getting better at having an understanding about this, going in, largely based on covers and brief readings and discussions about books ahead of time, but, obviously, I’m not perfect. That…
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by Marius Kociejowski I made a mistake with this one––not a disastrous mistake, mind you, though it sure felt like it at first. You see, The Pigeon Wars of Damascus is Kociejowski’s follow up to his earlier work, The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool, a book which I have yet to read. I didn’t,…
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edited by Daniel Sinker We Owe You Nothing is a collection of select interviews from Punk Planet magazine from the late ’90s and early noughties. Most of the interviewees are musicians from punk bands, but also people from the ’biz side––people running record labels or distribution networks––as well as individuals and groups involved in politics…
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by S. E. Hinton The Outsiders is S. E. Hinton’s popular and enduring story about class, friendship, and family, wrapped in a narrative about youth gang wars, presumably taking place in the ’50s or ’60s. Ponyboy and Johnny––both greasers, the lower-class gang––end up killing a Soc in self-defense. (Soc: short for “social,” so likely closer…
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by Jordan Tannahill In Liminal, the health of Jordan Tannahill’s mother, Monica, has been in a bit of decline. She’s just started going on the mend after having a mini-stroke, but she hasn’t felt great recently. After she doesn’t emerge from her bedroom long after she normally would in the morning, Jordan investigates. Seeing his…
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by Jules Verne After discovering a coded note in an ancient book, Professor Otto Lidenbrock and his nephew, Axel, set out to an extinct volcano in Iceland said to hold a passage to the centre of the Earth. Along with their Icelandic guide, they embark on a voyage to a subterranean world filled with unknown…
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by Kenneth Grahame This one was really weird to me, and for a few different reasons. Firstly, The Wind in the Willows is another case of any synopsis I read failing to get to the heart of the story, partly because there are multiple storylines following different characters throughout, but also because the only one…
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by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry In The Little Prince, an unnamed narrator crashes his airplane in the middle of the Sahara Desert. With a dwindling supply of water, he works frantically to repair his craft, but is met unexpectedly by a small boy who doesn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. The boy questions him,…
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by Michelle Winters Not long before Agathe and Réjean’s twentieth wedding anniversary, Réjean’s truck is found abandoned on the side of the road, there’s no trace of him, no body, and no sign of a struggle. I Am a Truck explores what happened to Réjean, as well as Agathe’s attempts to start living her life…
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by Pierre Razoux The Iran-Iraq War is an in-depth exploration of the terrible conflict that wracked the Middle East through most of the ’80s. Razoux starts us off by thrusting us into the heated political climate in the region immediately before the war broke out, moves into the initial, largely ineffectual military campaigns, and then…
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