Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders (Random House, 2017) As you can see, this isn't a strict audio book review in that I read this book in a combination of audio and on the page. I started it on audio but then got a copy out of the library because I was having trouble… Continue reading (Audio) Book Review: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
This is a book for book lovers and particular those of us who love our local libraries. It is, of sorts, a love letter to libraries and librarians. What You Are Looking for is in the Library consists of 5 unique sections, all linked by a library located in a community house in Tokyo. Each… Continue reading (Audio) Book Review: What You Are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama
Monsters - Claire Dederer (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023) What do we do with the art of monstrous men? This is the question - a fan's dilemma - that Claire Dederer delves into. It's an important one and a timely one too in the wake of #MeToo and the controversy of so-called "cancel culture". Can we… Continue reading Book Review: Monsters by Claire Dederer
Hello and welcome to the Sixth Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards! This is my annual occasion of looking back at what I’ve read and choosing the best ones in categories I’ve selected. It’s an entirely arbitrary process as I both choose the categories and the winners and the prize is nothing more than whatever… Continue reading Best Canadian Fiction: The 2023 Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards
Bangkok Wakes to Rain - Pitchaya Sudbanthad (Riverhead Books, 2019) Even as I was reading Bangkok Wakes to Rain, I found myself thinking, How am I going to classify this book? It's a novel but not exactly. It's a collection of short stories but that's not quite right either. It has sections that feel like… Continue reading Book Review: Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad
I read an Advance Uncorrected Proof of this book thanks to HarperVia. This book was translated from the original Dutch by Laura Watkinson. The story of how Frankenstein came to be is a famous one. Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and some other guy (John Polidori but I always forget about him) gathered together… Continue reading Book Review: Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout
The Last - Hanna Jameson (Atria Books, 2019) Post-apocalyptic murder mystery. That's the hook of The Last and the combination had me intrigued although I'm not generally drawn to murder mysteries. But the unique setting of a remote Swiss hotel immediately following nuclear war had me intrigued. Jon Keller is an American academic, staying at… Continue reading Book Review: The Last by Hanna Jameson
Tom Lake - Ann Patchet (Harper Collins, 2023) Ann Patchett is one of my favourite authors so any new book by her is a must-read in my mind. I picked up my copy of Tom Lake the day after it came out and then saved it for a week or two until I could devote… Continue reading Book Review: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Translated from Spanish to English by Edith Grossman What does it mean that my thrifted copy of Of Love and Other Demons had a photograph of a dog tucked into it? The photo has a white border and features a semi-rotund husky type dog in the centre, its eyes glowing in the flash of the… Continue reading Book Review: Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Alina is a young woman, a teacher, in the 1970s, living in the Socialist Republic of Romania, under a restrictive Communist regime. She and her husband, Liviu are generally happy and in love but when Liviu's brother defects, both of them fall under suspicion and her increasingly threatened with surveillance and interrogation. As the stress… Continue reading Book Review: Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn
