Thoughts on all things books and literature
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If I had to start a Hall of Fame for some of my favourite writers, Tove Jansson would certainly find a place on it. I discovered her writing thanks to the brilliant, much darker work The True Deceiver and have loved her other books and short stories as well, notably The Summer Book and her…
I’ve read only three Margaret Laurence books and have adored all of them – The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, and The Diviners, which is the focus of this review. All are part of the Manawaka cycle in that they are set in the fictional town of Manawaka, but are otherwise separate and can…
August is Women in Translation (WIT) Month, and I thought I’d put together a list of some of my favourite WIT books in 2025 and 2026 so far. This list features 12 books covering 9 languages – Norwegian, French, Korean, Greek, Spanish, German, Russian, Finnish, and Italian – and they are all excellent. Certainly worth…
I adore Barbara Pym’s books, both her earlier, more comic novels such as Crampton Hodnet, Some Tame Gazelle, and Jane and Prudence, and her later darker fare, notably Quartet in Autumn. The Sweet Dove Died lies somewhere in between – we see Pym’s wit, but it is also a much sadder novel. This is the…
I read some excellent books in May and June, interspersed with a trip to Paris where I got to see the fabulous Leonora Carrington exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg. The books are a mix of translated literature, art history and biography, short stories, Canadian and American literature, and at least 2-3 books are strong…
Despite having visited Paris before, one of the biggest draws for me this year was the Leonora Carrington exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg, which ran until July 19, 2026. I had adored her novel The Hearing Trumpet and had long been fascinated by her artwork from what I had seen in books and on…
Edith Wharton is easily one of my favourite authors, and I have loved everything I’ve read by her – from The Age of Innocence (which I hope to reread, as it’s been so long since I first read it) and The Custom of the Country to The House of Mirth, Old New York, The New…
I am gradually making my way through William Trevor’s short story collections, after which I have his novels to savour. I am randomly choosing the collections – the first I read and enjoyed was Last Stories, and subsequently I went on to love After Rain. This time I chose Cheating at Canasta, and every story…
I first heard of Joan Barfoot thanks to the wonderful Backlisted podcast (I have yet to listen to the episode, but I’m all set to do so shortly), and after looking up Gaining Ground, I was intrigued. Her books are hard to find; Gaining Ground was out of print, and I couldn’t find any reasonably…
As seen in three superb novels, Elena Knows, A Little Luck, and A Crack in the Wall, the hallmark of Claudia Piñeiro’s fiction is her ability to use crime as a lens through which to examine pressing social issues, and Cathedrals is no exception – this is a brilliant, engrossing tale that explores misogyny, the…
