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Author: ALU Editor
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Beautiful Books: Blaze Island
It’s easy to see why Catherine Bush’s new novel Blaze Island (Goose Lane Editions) made all sorts of booklists: it’s a page-turning cli-fi thriller about a cast of characters who are either fighting for the planet or trying to make a buck (sound familiar?). The book cover, designed by Goose Lane’s creative director and designer Julie…
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Coincidence, or “do not rest your hopes on these vain things that all men desire, but follow the sure road that leads to the highest good”
“He went on at great length about the conspiracy theory he had been formulating in the last week while lying in the dark. All about how the universe was trying to kill him. ‘The universe is trying to kill me.’The universe is trying to keel everyone, Milton.'”January 6, 2021 was the pinnacle of my otherwise barely there literary…
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Books for Black History Month (and any other month)
In honour of Black History Month, we’ve put together six reading recommendations from Black authors who share essential stories of struggle, healing and resilience in the face of racism and social injustice.
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Test Kitchen: Banana Bread
Here at ALU HQ, we’ve let books guide our tummies on several occasions with delicious results (pasta, borscht and seafood, oh my!). In fact, we’ve planned entire meals based on books. And occasionally, we even get inspired to bake by the book. Below, ALU staffer Tan Light takes on a little banana bread baking journey spurred on…
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Writer’s Block: Genni Gunn
Author of twelve books, including her most recent Permanent Tourists (Signature Editions), Genni Gunn joins us on the blog—sharing more about her parallel life as a musician, the classical history she carries with her as a result of growing up in Italy, and her restlessness for journeys into the unexpected.
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Read This, Then That: H20 Edition
This edition of Read This, Then That is courtesy of ECW Press who brings us two books for the social justice-minded reader. Follow-up David R. Boyd’s political thriller Thirst for Justice with Maude Barlow’s call-to-action Whose Water Is It, Anyway? for a well informed look at the inaction of global powers over humanitarian issues and the collective path to protecting…
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Writer’s Block: Jenna Butler
Poet and author Jenna Butler—whose newly published Revery: A Year of Bees was recently published by Wolsak and Wynn—sits down Q&A-style with us to chat about the impulse to write, a standout writerly moment at age six, and how reading IBPOC/BIPOC writers makes her feel more “as a writer and as a woman.”
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Poetry in Motion: Paul Vermeersch
Paul Vermeersch’s poetry has always been fascinated with the question of what makes us human. From the human body to the human mind, from our place in society to our place in the cosmos, Vermeersch’s latest book Shared Universe: New & Selected Poems 1995-2020 (ECW Press) gathers together many of his poems that explore these…
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Quoted: Approaching Fire
In Approaching Fire (Breakwater Books), Red River Métis poet and journalist Michelle Porter combines musicology, jigs and reels, poetry, photographs and clippings, and the ecology of fire to create a portrait of her great-grandfather Métis fiddler Bob Goulet. Below, Michelle tells us the fascinating and storied past of the epigraph that begins her book: a newspaper ad from the 1930s…
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Off/Kilter: Five Reads for A Surreal Escape
With the inability to travel right now, many of us are looking for ways to escape our current reality. I can promise you this: these five books will take you further than your daily walk ever could—to surreal places ruled by the imagination, where, for better or worse, dream and reality become one. Stay weird…
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First Fiction Friday: The Adventures of Isabel
Turning the mystery genre on its head, The Adventures of Isabel (ECW Press) follows a sharp-tongued amateur sleuth as she strikes out to solve the murder of a sex worker alongside her sassy cat and partner in crime fighting. This first novel from author Candas Jane Dorsey is a romp that takes readers all the…
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X: You Are Here by Ioana Georgescu
I am here: Montreal. I am writing these lines while surfing a new big wave that splashes us with grenade-looking microorganisms. In snowy Montreal, I cannot bike anymore. I miss the Canal Lachine. I cannot swim either. Pools are closed. I like to move. I like to travel. My first novel Évanouissement à Shinjuku appeared…
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On I Am the Big Heart: An Interview with Sarah Venart
In her latest collection I Am the Big Heart(Brick Books) poet Sarah Venart wonders at the capacity of the heart: what does it really mean to be big-hearted, to be big enough for your children, your partner, and yourself? At turns tender and biting, these poems dig at the power of wild desire, reveal feelings…
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If You Liked X, Read Y: Novels Inspired by Art
If your bookshelf is heavy on novels inspired by famous pieces of art, notably the much-loved Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, we humbly present its perfect follow-up: Dede Crane’s One Madder Woman (Freehand Books) paints a fictional portrait of the life of Berthe Morisot, the only female painter in the circle of French Impressionists.
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Books to Read Based on Your Zodiac
BEST OF THE BLOG 2021The stars have aligned with our bookshelves to bring you reading recommendations based (sort of) on your zodiac sign.