Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers (Mariner Books, 2024) Helen Hansford is an art therapist, working as an art therapist at Westbury Park, a psychiatric hospital. The year is 1964 and art therapy is still something of a new idea. Helen enjoys her work and is challenged by it but psychotherapy is on the cusp of… Continue reading Book Review: Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
Read: The Mythmakers - John Hendrix (Abrams, 2024) The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa (translated from the Italian by Guido Waldman) (Pantheon Books, 2007) Tyll - Daniel Kehlmann (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin) (Pantheon Books, 2020) Rainbow Valley - L.M. Montgomery (Seal Books, 1976) James - Percival Everett (Doubleday, 2024) The Christian Book… Continue reading What I Read: November 2024
Tyll - Daniel Kehlmann (Pantheon Books, 2022) (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin) I had never heard of Tyll Ulenspiegel before picking up this novel but I gather that he's a well-known German folk figure. A classic trickster type, given to bawdy jokes. Here Kehlmann brings him into the context of the Thirty Years… Continue reading Book Review: Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann
The Stolen Bicycle - Wu Ming-Yi (translated from Mandarin by Darryl Sterk) (Text Publishing, 2017) This was such an unexpected, playful, thoughtful, and informative book. It reads more like a non-fiction story rather than a novel, perhaps because it’s hard to tell at times how much is based on the author’s actual life. And perhaps… Continue reading Book Review: The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi
A friend pushed this book into my hands, telling me that she had devoured it over one weekend. She'd found so much to relate to within its pages, she told me, even as she reassured me that her husband is great. It was a statement worth making because the husband on these pages is pretty… Continue reading Book Review: Liars by Sarah Manguso
Intermezzo - Sally Rooney (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2024) An intermezzo, in music, is a short instrumental movement between larger acts. In chess, it refers to an unexpected move that forces an immediate response. Reading these definitions after I finished Sally Rooney's most recent novel, it struck me immediately what a fitting title the book… Continue reading Book Review: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Small Animals - Kim Brooks (Flatiron Books, 2018) When Kim Brooks' son was 4-years-old, she took him along for a last minute errand at a Target while she was visiting her parents in the state of Virginia. Once there, young Felix wanted to stay in the car and so Brooks allowed it. She locked the… Continue reading Book Review: Small Animals by Kim Brooks
Read: The Names of all the Flowers - Melissa Valentine (The Feminist Press, 2020) Land of Big Numbers - Te-Ping Chen (Mariner Books, 2021) Really Good, Actually - Monica Heisey (Harper Collins, 2023) The Epic of Gilgamesh - trans. N.K. Sandars (Penguin Classics, 1964) The Husbands - Holly Gramazio (Doubleday Canada, 2024) The Heaven &… Continue reading What I Read: September 2024
Really Good, Actually - Monica Heisey (HarperCollinsPublishersLtd., 2023) Point Form Book Reviews are my way of reviewing books that I don't necessarily have a lot to say about but still want to share a little on. So here are my thoughts on Really Good, Actually: I finished this about 2 weeks and I can't remember… Continue reading (Point Form) Book Review: Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
The Coast Road - Alan Murrin (HarperVia, 2024) I received an Advance Readers Copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own. Book is on sale now. Without quite intending to, I've found myself reading quite a bit of Irish writing this past year or so. I don't know if I can… Continue reading Book Review: The Coast Road by Alan Murrin
Karissa Reads Books 