The Marriage Portrait - Maggie O'Farrell (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022) Lucrezia is the youngest daughter of Medicis of Florence. Raised in luxury but strictly watched over by her mother and father, her life as a young girl in the 1550s is dictated for her from birth. Yet there is a wildness to her, something… Continue reading Book Review: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Read: The Promise - Damon Galgut (Europa Editions Audio, 2022) How It Went - Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, 2022) The Glass Hotel - Emily St. John Mandel (Harper Collins Publishers, 2020) Around the Hearth - L.M. Montgomery (Nimbus Publishing, 2022) The Colony - Audrey Magee (Farrer, Strauss, Giroux, 2022) Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr (Scribner,… Continue reading What I Read – December 2022
Loved this book. Who is the main character? I'm not sure and I don't even care. Ponzi scheme set in 2008 inspired by Madoff Vincent is an amazing main character - she’s smart and vulnerable, fluid and changing but consistent in her basic character. She feels real. The setting of a remote luxury hotel located… Continue reading (Point Form) Book Review: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
South African author, winner of the Booker Prize follows one family over several years When their mother dies, she makes their father promise that he will give their servant, Salome, her house to own Apartheid South Africa, the family is white, Salome is Black...we see where this is going, right? Father does not honour the… Continue reading (Point Form) Book Review: The Promise by Damon Galgut
Hello and Welcome Back to the final installment of the Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards! Undoubtedly, most of what I read is fiction so this final category is the Big One. I have my top 5 below but some other titles I greatly enjoyed reading in the past year are (in no particular… Continue reading Best Fiction: The Fifth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
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
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
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
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
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
Karissa Reads Books 