They’ve stayed down-to-earth, innovative, and intimate despite their first two albums making platinum status and their third receiving an ARIA. This is a band that refuses to be pigeonholed. Listen to them, and I dare you not to smile and dance, even if you’re feeling glum. Their latest, So Many Nights is just a bit smoother and sweeter – maybe pop-ier than their last four.
A review of The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
All in all, like The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Daring Book for Girls is a good-looking, long lasting gift that girls will turn to for inspiration repeatedly. The balance between doing and learning is nicely managed, and the information is geared to be interesting and exciting for young girls.
A review of My Inflatable Friend by Gerald Everett Jones
My Inflatable Friend is a super easy read that won’t tax even the laziest reader. It is pitched to a male audience in the main, and makes no apologies for that – there’s plenty of wish fulfilment, skirt chasing, and a definite male perspective. But the book isn’t dumb either.
A review of Magic and Grace by Chad Hautmann
Unlike Billie’s Ghost, the magic in Magic and Grace is all metaphorical. There are visitations though. Chapman’s father materialises temporarily to give Chapman his blessing, there are the ghosts of the ancient Calusa buried below the city of Naples where the book is set (and the ghost of the city as it changes progressively), and of course the ghost of Keats from Chapman’s first novel.
A review of The Confessions of Owen Keane by Terence Faherty
The stories are indeed rather special and they develop the crime genre in a fascinating direction. Owen Keane fulfils many of the roles of a priest – he offers pastoral care to his “parishioners” and feels an imperative to save or rescue them. More often than not, it is he who decides when and how to offer help, responding to a need that is not apparent to others.
Interview with Tony Nesca
Tony Nesca, born in 1965, is the author of many books of fiction and poetry. As the reader will perceive, he is a writer who believes in the primacy of the unfettered imagination and the untrammeled life. In this candid interview, he talks about Winnipeg, Italy, influences, conventional publishers, on the neglect of Canadian authors, and much more.
A review of A Pocketful of Noses: Stories of One Ganelon or Another by James Powell
All twelve are solid detective stories, the solutions often hingeing on a new understanding of the original situation, an inconspicuous fact being recognised as crucially significant. However, it is the entertaining historical background that Powell provides for San Sebastiano which raises these tales above the rest.
A review of Aphelion by Emily Ballou
Ballou has created a much more complex novel in Aphelion than in Father Lands, but it’s no more difficult to read as a result. The complexity of time, place and multiple view points is dealt with sensitively and with a sophistication that is always tempered by Ballou’s great love of character and language, and an undercurrent of enduring humour that’s never far beneath the surface.
A review of The Do-Nothing Boys by Tony Nesca
Some of this novel is clumsy and a little repetitive, but the ferocity of Nesca’s writing is indomitable and covers weaknesses with something that approaches indisputable glory. He is a poet writing prose and dealing with material that is so close to him that he often struggles to manage it objectively. It is raw honesty from one of life’s damaged angels and worth your attention.
A review of De la Bourdonnais versus MacDonnell, 1834 by Cary Utterberg
Summing up, De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834 is both a wonderful tribute to the two outstanding chess players of the early nineteenth century and a worthy record of a match series whose importance has been too much neglected and too little recognized.