Spring Preview: Staff Picks

Christen’s Pick

I am looking forward to reading Sit How You Want by Robin Richardson, female-narrated poetry about terror, anxiety, and powerlessness, countering lingering trauma of abusive relationships, familial and romantic, by belief that poetry is an instrument of change and a tool to transform pain into exuberant verbal energy. I enjoyed Richardson’s previous collection, Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis (ECW Press, 2013).

Lauren’s Pick

It’s no secret to anyone at ALU HQ that I love crime stuff: the My Favourite Murder podcast, The Wire, Fargo…even reruns of CSI get me going. Imagine my delight at hearing about Zara’s Dead, an upcoming literary mystery from GG-nominated author Sharon Butala. This book follows Fiona Lychenko, a late-sixties amateur sleuth who’s devoted the better part of her adulthood to solving the murder of her high-school friend Zara Stanley. Just as she’s about to give up on the case for good, a nondescript envelope arrives at her doorstep that blows it wide open. Like main character Fiona, Butala lost a high-school classmate to murder: the novel is loosely based on the real-life “The Girl in Saskatoon” case from 1961 (Butala’s also written a non-fiction book on the case. This story of a dogged older woman determined to find the truth reminds me of the self-imposed women investigators Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Fitzgerald Schaub central to Netflix’s The Keepers—and I’m here for it.

Mandy’s Pick

A debut short story collection? Surreal/dystopian/slightly off-kilter? Paige Cooper’s Zolitude is exactly my kind of book. The stories in this collection promise to transport to believable but slightly twisted worlds where love—flawed, disillusioned, blemished—is often a central theme. Zolitude has been touted as the “literary equivalent of a non-stop action film” by author Aislinn Hunter, and I’m ready to give my head a spin.

Tan’s Pick

Spring is in the air and I am looking forward to some patio time with many of the amazing poetry collections we have to offer this year. It was hard to narrow it down to one, but David James Brock’s Ten-Headed Alien promises to be an epic mash-up of sci-fi, prog-rock, politics and myth; everything my little geek heart could ask for. Plus, who could resist that stunning, otherworldly cover? This alien invasion is not to be missed.

Barb’s Pick

The Home for Wayward Parrots is a bildungsroman that is touted to appeal to readers of Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland. I’m a fan of the genre, and a big fan of anything to do with birds being silly so I’m really looking forward to this read!