by Grant Matheson The Golden Boy is Matheson’s memoir about his personal experience with narcotic and alcohol addiction. It starts by relating the beginnings of the illness taking shape in the early 2000s, when he was a physician practising in Charlottetown, and how his life spiralled out of control as he sank deeper and deeper…
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by Gore Vidal In the final days of high school in small town Virginia, Jim Willard has a homosexual encounter with Bob Ford, and he falls for him hard. Unfortunately for Jim, this happens only days before Bob leaves to travel the world as a sailor. The City and the Pillar follows Jim’s journey in…
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by Pablo Neruda I don’t know if I can stress enough the importance I find comes with reading a book of poetry through twice, back-to-back. I haven’t necessarily done it with every poetry collection I’ve read––not the longer ones, specifically––but my opinion feels so much more well informed at the end of such an exercise….
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by Khalil Gibran The Prophet is Gibran’s famous collection of poetic essays. Framed as a prophet preparing to leave a place he’s lived for over a decade, he imparts his final words of wisdom to the people he loves, those who have come to love him back, who listen in rapt attention. And these words…
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by Andrew Battershill Marry, Bang, Kill follows Alan Mouse––Mousey to his “friends”––a retired cop living on Quadra Island, a quiet place just off the coast of Vancouver Island. When he crosses paths with Tommy Marlo, a small time mugger who stole a laptop loaded with incriminating photos along with a hundred grand from a dangerous…
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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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