The observations are visceral, coming from within a strong sense of the body. Thinness and its relationship to illness is a continual theme, though very different to the analytical approach of Small Acts of Disappearance. In Domestic Interior the perceptions are simultaneously more delicate and more intense, drawing the reader directly into the deepest heart of pain. The body and its relationship to food informs nearly every perception.
An Interview with Laura Greaves
Prior to focusing full-time on penning books, Laura Greaves spent twenty years in journalism, earning several illustrious awards for her work throughout her career. Ever influenced by her lifelong love of dogs, fused with her unquenchable passion for writing, Greaves utilised her contacts and experience as an editor for Dogs Life magazine to commence producing a series of books catering to fellow doggy enthusiasts. In addition to her books focusing on amazing real-life dogs, she has also produced three romantic comedy novels. The card-carrying, self-proclaimed ‘crazy dog lady’ is the proud human of two Tollers (Nova Scotia Ducks Tolling Retrievers, a boy and a girl).
A review of Deliverance by Miantae Metcalf McConnell
The lives of forgotten, marginalized persons – among them, people of other ethnicities to our own, and women – are in desperate need of recuperation. Many of those lives are fascinating, enlightening and inspiring, but if we seek deliberately to make them inspiring from our own positions of power and privilege, then we do them a grave disservice and perpetuate the historical imbalances that marginalized them in the first place.
A review of The Bookworm by Mitch Silver
I would have to say that Silver’s a romantic as well. In his Author’s Notes he comments that he named his Russian beauty after the blond beauty in the movie Doctor Zhivago. He even has a romantic triangle ending in tragedy, but not as you’d expect. One night I couldn’t sleep for wondering how the book would play out and I named all the characters, using most of the alphabet. There’s four ‘n’ names, though! Will you enjoy The Bookworm? I think so. Very much.
Tracy Sorensen on The Lucky Galah
Tracy Sorensen drops by Compulsive Reader Talks to read from and chat about her new book The Lucky Galah. The conversation is wide ranging but we talk about such things as her fabulous main character Lucky, about anthropomorphism and the relationship…
A review of The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst
This novel is more than just another a period piece of fiction. Crowhurst has written an evocative experience: a time-machine back to three and a half centuries ago into a world so unlike the present day that it actually become entangled and is essentially involved in generating our present heritage. This is set in a time before those childhood nursery rhymes were yet to be constructed as political satire and when the Dutch were the current adversary. Mix up the wrong potion and you could be accused of witchcraft.
A review of Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
Anatomy of a Scandal reads like a story ripped from today’s headlines: a prominent man is accused of sexual harassment. I couldn’t put the book down—I actually felt edgy when I wasn’t reading it, almost like the story was an addiction.
A review of The Arab’s Ox by Tony Ardizzone
Morocco stands for something to each of the characters. In order to decipher this symbol in their lives, they must look inward. They each arrive at a turning point in which Morocco speaks back to them, helps them discover its meaning to them. For Henry, Ahmed becomes his guide not only to various Moroccan sites, but to his own mortality. Rosemary, an American ex-patriate, a grizzled but classy woman, sees her younger self in Sarah and tries to steer her toward a different future.
A review of The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen
It’s hard to believe that The Lucky Galah is a debut. It’s an ambitious, complex novel full of varying points of view, voices, historical narration, a variety of themes, and all sorts of subtle references, including many literary links and allusions, but the writing is so assured and smooth that these complexities become rich undercurrents that seamlessly integrate into the story rather than digressions.
A review of Incredible Floridas by Stephen Orr
Times and places appear to so often remain in a form of flux throughout this novel, and to help me keep track I began underlining the locations with a yellow highlighter. As for those past decades chosen by Orr, I only have to close my eyes and it all comes back to me as if it were yesterday. Every neighbourhood seemed to have a problem son like Orr’s Hal: the one who started all the fires, or sometimes shot at you with his air rifle, and all too often kicked a neighbour’s garbage tin up and down the street.