Hello and Welcome Back! Today's category of the Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards is focused on the best non-fiction books I read in 2022. I am definitely a fiction reader. It takes a lot for a non-fiction book to really jump out at me and onto my TBR. When I do read non-fiction, I tend… Continue reading Best Non-Fiction: The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
Author: Karissa
Best Canadian Book: The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
Hello and Welcome Back! As a Canadian and an avid reader, I like to read a lot of books by Canadian writers. I personally think that books are one of the few media that remains unique in Canadian. Our movies, our television, and our music is largely dominated by our American neighbours but in literature,… Continue reading Best Canadian Book: The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
Book Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
For approximately two-thirds of The Other Black Girl, I felt like I was reading a smart, contemporary novel about young women in the workplace, modern publishing industries, and the issues that Black women deal with. Then, quite suddenly, the book turned into something far more nefarious and confusing. To the point that I had the… Continue reading Book Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
Hello and Welcome to the Fifth (yes, fifth!) Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards! This is my annual, very rigorous, very competitive, highly esteemed way of looking back at what I've read over the past year and rating it by a merit system known only to myself. Eligible books must have been read by me… Continue reading The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
What I Read – November 2022
Read: Dandelion - Jamie Chai Yun Liew (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022) Good Inside - Dr. Becky Kennedy (Harper Wave, 2022) A Room Made of Leaves - Kate Grenville (Text Publishing Company, 2021) Away - Amy Bloom (High Bridge Audio, 2007) Trinity, Trinity, Trinity - Erika Kobayashi (Astra House, 2022) (translated from Japanese by Brian Bergstrom)… Continue reading What I Read – November 2022
2022 Highlights: End of November and the Beginning of Advent
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. In the church calendar, the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day are a time of reflection and preparation. Not just the busy prep of the holidays - decoration, shopping, baking - though those are all good things, but a time set aside to contemplate what it means… Continue reading 2022 Highlights: End of November and the Beginning of Advent
Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist. She should be excelling in her field, pursuing her research, widely respected by her colleagues. The problem is - Elizabeth is a woman in the early 1960s and at every turn she is hampered not exactly by her gender but by men who don't believe she can do more… Continue reading Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
2022 Highlights: Halloween, snow, and vaccinations
I am delighted to announce that as of this weekend, our whole family is vaccinated against Covid-19! Rose got her first dose on Saturday, along with her annual flu shot. I had registered her through the online system as soon as she turned 5 in September but after not hearing anything back, I went ahead… Continue reading 2022 Highlights: Halloween, snow, and vaccinations
(Audio) Book Review: Away by Amy Bloom
When Lillian Leyb's whole family is killed in a Russian pogrom - brutally slaughtered by their neighbours simply for being Jewish - she boards a ship to a new country and ends up in New York City, sharing a cramped apartment with a cousin and a rotating cast of other roommates. A job at a… Continue reading (Audio) Book Review: Away by Amy Bloom
What I Read – October 2022
Read: A Place for Us - Fatima Farheen Mirza (Random House Audio, 2018) The Daughter of Doctor Moreau - Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey, 2022) Chivalry - Neil Gaiman & Colleen Doran (Dark Horse Books, 2022) Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday Canada, 2022) Pallbearing - Michael Melgaard (Astoria, 2020) The Collected Short Stories of… Continue reading What I Read – October 2022





