One of the most fun things for me as a parent is introducing my girls to the books I loved when I was a kid. I hadn't read anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder in years but when Pearl turned four last year and we started reading chapter books with her at bedtime, I thought we'd… Continue reading Reading with Pearl & Rose: Laura Ingalls Wilder
It is a strange, strange time in our world right now. While we remain largely unaffected in our community, we know that we are not immune to what's happening in the world and we know we can't quite continue life as normal. Spring Break for our family began this week, as planned, but it is… Continue reading Life: Spring Break in a Pandemic
The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant - Michel Tremblay (Talonbooks, 2008) This Quebecois classic takes place in a single day - 2 May 1942 - and mostly on one street. Working class Montreal, three years into World War Two. This is a Francophone neighbourhood where it just so happens that seven women are pregnant… Continue reading Book Review: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant – Michel Tremblay
Every year (since 1982) my small town has played host to the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. It's the longest-running writers festival featuring solely Canadian writers. It's a wonderful weekend in August that celebrates Canadian writers and brings readers together. It's an intimate and thought-provoking few days and one of the highlights of… Continue reading Writers Fest 2020 Challenge
When I was a kid, going to the library was a great event. My brother and I would spend what felt like hours poring over the shelves, reaching for our favourites, and finding new books. We knew which sections had the best books and we knew just how many Asterix comics we were each allowed… Continue reading Reading with Pearl & Rose: A Trip to the Library
Over the month of December I shared some of favourite reads of 2019 in my Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards, so feel free to glance back over those posts if you're curious about what I enjoyed reading this year. This post will focus on my overall reading statistics and at the end I'll share a… Continue reading What I Read – 2019
If you follow along here, you might notice that most of my reading is fictional. That said, 2019 has seen me reading more non-fiction than I ever have before. In fact, looking at the numbers, I've almost doubled the amount of non-fiction compared to 2018. Part of this is because of my Writers' Fest Challenge,… Continue reading Best Non-Fiction
The Second Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards got off to a great start this week - thank you to all who shared their picks for best translated work! Today I'm focusing on short story collections. I love short stories. It wasn't until university that I really began to appreciate them - before that my… Continue reading Best Short Stories
Here I Am! - Pauline Holdstock (Biblioasis, 2019) I received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book. All opinions are my own. I didn't initially plan on reading Pauline Holdstock's latest novel because, hey, I've The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and I felt like I'd heard this story before. Quirky, child… Continue reading Book Review: Here I Am! by Pauline Holdstock
The shortlist for the 2019 Giller Prize was announced yesterday. This is, arguably, the most prestigious of awards for Canadian literature. The announcement yesterday narrows the playing field from twelve to six. This year I've decided to read as many as I can. As it turns out, I've already read 4 of the shortlisted titles… Continue reading The Giller Prize 2019: Shortlist
Karissa Reads Books 