Sarah Crossan manages, in her recently published young adult novel to explain the reasons behind the mid-19th century Irish famine, show what it was like to live through it, & give the reader a charming love story. All at the same time. And she does it in (non-rhyming) verse, for heaven’s sake. 🖋️📚💙🍀

Stolen is a compelling, thriller-type novel about the discrimination & oppression faced by the Sami people in rural Sweden. Like our indigenous peoples in Canada, the Sami face a myriad of challenges: racism, violence, cultural genocide, encroaching climate change, & a disappearing way of life. 🖋️📚💙

Prescient in its day, Boschwitz’s rediscovered & newly translated 1937 novel about beggars, veterans, & prostitutes hustling to survive in Weimar Berlin continues to be relevant: desperate citizens with nothing left to lose will cling to any hope they can find, even a cruel & destructive one. 🖋️📚💙

In the stories of 12 “Great Man” statues, from erection to destruction, Von Tunzelmann gives us an entertaining & well-researched argument for putting an end to this misguided, even silly custom of commemoration. Highly recommended. 💡📚💙

Greetings, new friends! You may know me as an author, a prolific Bluesky poster and 4th place finisher on So You Call That Dancing? But you might not know that my partner Judith (@mzpress) and I have an online arts bookstore that's growing every day. Full inventory here: mzs.press/EVERYTHING-W...

French-Korean author Dusapin packs so much into this slim, deftly-translated novel: how to live with family you love but don’t like; coming to terms with childhood memories that might not be accurate; filling silences; going home again; finding your voice at the possible expense of others. 🖋️📚💙

Mark Haddon’s memoir left me heartbroken-but-laughing, aghast with recognition but grateful that my childhood wasn’t THAT bad, & deeply envious of the author’s awesome multi-disciplinary talent. His artwork is as clever, compassionate, & sometimes as wryly funny as his writing.💡📚💙

As the caregiver for my elderly parents, Sarah Perry’s memoir about her father-in-law’s rapid decline & death after an unexpected cancer diagnosis felt familiar & reassuring. With striking candour & compassion, she reveals the extraordinary that exists within the ordinary, for all of us.💡📚💙

Cash’s debut novel Lost Lambs is absolutely (absurdly) infested with hilarious family dysfunction, teenage angst, midlife crises, & characters who are not (or, sometimes, who really, really are) what they seem. And gnats. A funny, light read that felt like a good antidote for current events. 🖋️📚💙

Poppick’s very readable book about the history of the Earth, learned from studying strata formations, is a nice reprieve from the current timeline, although this branch of geology also serves to teach us about the importance of larger earth systems, & warn us that we disrupt them at our peril. 💡📚💙

There’s nothing new to say about an anti-war classic like All Quiet on the Western Front. Banned & burned by the Nazis in 1933, it remains vital, enraging, tragic, &, sadly, relevant; a generation of hopeful & promising youth lost to the hubris & ignorance of old men. 🖋️📚💙📚🇩🇪

Naughty nuns, medieval peasants, ancient (evil?) gods, exiled healers: what’s not to love? Mere is folk horror set in a convent in the midst of the liminal fenlands of 990 AD Norfolk. It is beautifully written, feels authentically terrifying, & brings compelling, flawed characters to vivid life.⏳📚💙

Short stories aren’t my jam, I prefer a big novel, but Bordas’ newest collection kept me enthralled. Her characters are people you know or have been; their lives & conflicts are relatable but unique; & their reactions are sometimes hilarious, often poignant & raw, sometimes all at the same time. 🖋️📚💙

Given how little can be known about the life of Vermeer, Graham-Dixon’s new work is something of a speculative biography. However, the research & history surrounding the painter is so beautifully told, the paintings so beautifully described, it’s thought-provoking & well worth reading. 💡📚💙

Funny, endearing, & fierce, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s new novel tells the story of a family of women in Lagos, Nigeria struggling through superstition, generational trauma, tradition, tribalism, & some strong personalities to live their lives under a multi-generational curse. 🖋️📚💙

Muriel Spark was an eccentric & greatly admired writer of fiction & biography. She was also ornery, self-absorbed, & paranoid. Wilson’s new biography does a thrilling job of winkling out the personal information Spark went to great lengths to alter & obscure during her lifetime.💡📚💙

Susan Orlean is always worth reading. Her curiosity, exuberance, & sense of humour make whatever subject she chooses relatable & fascinating. Her recently published memoir is both delightful & instructive: prospective writers will find lots of excellent advice & encouragement. 💡📚💙

I always enjoy reading Spufford’s novels, & his latest is no exception: the blitz is hammering London & two women are central to the future of civilisation. One wants a fascist state, the other wants rights & freedoms. Heavy on magical realism. Coming to an indie bookshop near you this spring. 🖋️📚💙📚🪐

The Radetzky March (1932) is a novel about an old, corrupt, increasingly ineffectual monarchy mired in discontent & revolt, losing touch with the present while clinging desperately to past glory. Its death throes culminate in the Great War, upending & destroying the lives of millions. 🖋️📚💙

This is a completely delightful collection of gothic Christmas ghost stories, all centred around the witching hour. It’s the 3rd in a series of creepy 🎄 anthologies published by Hachette UK, & includes a bunch of my favourite authors, including Natasha Pulley, Jess Kidd, & Andrew Michael Hurley. 🩸📚💙

Clint Smith’s examination of the way slavery in the USA is (or is not) commemorated is thoughtful, poetic, profound, personal-yet-universal in scope, & thoroughly researched. That he is a compassionate person of integrity & conviction really comes through in his writing. Highly recommended. 💡📚💙

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is an environmental disaster thriller (is that a genre? I feel like that’s a genre). It’s well-plotted with lots of suspense, twists, & likeable, flawed characters. The setting is a fictional island between Tasmania & Antarctica, but it feels real. 🖋️📚💙

Albanian LSE philosophy prof Lea Ypi investigates her beloved grandmother’s story in this remarkable genre-bending biography. She uses the disconnect between her memories, the memories of others, & the gaps in the official records to consider the meaning of dignity: personal, public, & political.💡📚💙

A novel with a fabulous premise in which a young, smart, neurodivergent present-day anthropologist investigates the circumstances surrounding the death of a young, smart, neurodivergent iron-age druid; their stories are told side-by-side, with some environmental fight thrown in for good measure. ⏳📚💙

A collection of folk horror short stories set over a number of centuries in the grim, cursed ancient village Barrowbeck. Less chilling than some of Hurley’s earlier novels, Barrowbeck is nevertheless full of sinister foreboding, unfriendly environments, & neighbours who are just a bit … off.🩸📚💙

Encampment describes the crisis of homelessness across North America & Europe. Helwig practices a Christianity of radical love & compassion at her parish in Toronto; the byzantine bylaws & rules to which our most vulnerable citizens are subject are as enraging as her activism & care are admirable💡📚💙

A name scratched on the wall of an historic house in France leads Le Tellier to research the life of a young man killed in a WWII skirmish, filling in details where necessary from imagination & history. It is also a clarion call from the past, a reminder of the sacrifices made to defeat fascism. 🖋️📚💙

Amongst Women is the story of a former IRA soldier who feels betrayed by his countrymen. He takes his loss of authority & control out on his family, driving away his sons & tyrannising his wife & daughters who, in spite of it all, continue to love & care for him in his impotent old age. 🖋️📚💙

Photographer Sally Mann’s latest work is an open, frank, & often funny guide to creating art, as well as a bit of a history of photography & of her own career. Well aware of her own difficult, demanding nature, it’s also part cautionary tale, yet also thoroughly supportive & encouraging. 💡📚💙

First published in 1943, Ali’s classic novel follows a doomed romance between Raif, a romantic, melancholy Turkish student & the frank, beguiling artist, Maria. The author beautifully sketches Weimar Berlin, its attitudes & moralities brought to life in Maria’s clear-eyed fatalism. 🖋️📚💙

Tokyo Express is a 1958 Japanese noir novel recently reissued by Random House. What could have been a dry logic puzzle of train schedules & maps of Japan is enlivened by lively, dogged detectives, imperfect but determined to follow their instincts & uncover the truth. A slim-but-satisfying read.⚡️📚💙

Hu Anyan offers in his memoir an interesting glimpse into the Chinese gig economy. Through all the often mindless, physically demanding work, the occasional humiliation, & some tasks he simply doesn’t like or for which he isn’t well-suited, he maintains his sense of humour & dignity.💡📚💙

A dystopian novel about a not-all-that-distant future in which AI is very definitely running the show & resistance is, if not futile, extremely difficult (but not dead yet!); Nayler has, in a surprisingly short novel, created a bewildering world of paranoia, confusion, despair, defiance, & hope.🪐📚💙

I missed subway stops at least 5 times reading this novel. Set in the nascent 19th century medical community in Edinburgh, the mystery involves young, vulnerably-employed women who are being horribly poisoned. A gripping if occasionally gruesome tale with a very satisfying conclusion.⚡️📚💙⏳📚

What I loved about this memoir/worldwide cemetery tour by Argentinian horror author Enriquez was her compassionate, unapologetic self-awareness; sense of humour; thoughtful storytelling; & her way of beautifully integrating the personal & the universal. 💡📚💙

Die Apothekerin is a darkly funny novel unreliably narrated by a pharmacist who has terrible luck with (& taste in) men. Since the tragic death of a schoolmate when she was a young girl, she also encounters a startling number of deaths & near-deaths, some accidental, some on purpose. 🇩🇪📚💙

Simon Mason‘s most recent (compulsively readable) DI Ryan Wilkins mystery novel, A Voice in the Night, is very satisfying on a bunch of levels: lots of unexpected twists, social commentary, humour, touching parenting moments, exposed hypocrisies. ⚡️📚💙

🇨🇦 Thammavongsa’s first novel describes a day in the life of Ning, the owner of a nail salon in a city that might be Toronto. Ning’s interior monologues & the differences between what she says to her workers, clients, & herself reveal profound tensions between classes, races, sexes, & friends. 🖋️📚💙

This sprawling French novel about a 20th century Italian sculptor & his muse examines the rise & fall of Fascism in Italy, the lives of Italian women, the profundity of friendship & family loyalty, & the many facets of love & faith. A mystery at the heart of the novel propels the plot forward. 🖋️📚💙

I cannot stress this strongly enough: Support your local theatre, café, bookstore, bakery, and library. We breathe life into these places when we support them. They need us, and more importantly, we need them.

Two utopian (solarpunk? hopepunk?) novellas by Becky Chambers in one. A lovely break from the horrors of the news cycle, & a story that raises questions about what societies value & why. Also offers up a bit of hope for surviving this apocalypse & the greed that is devouring our planet.🪐📚💙

🇨🇦 BBC foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet’s new book is a people’s history of Afghanistan (from 1969 to the present) from the perspective of the employees of one of the most storied hotels in Kabul. Informative, compelling, & compassionate, Doucet gives Afghanis a platform to tell their own story. 💡📚💙

For Broadchurch enthusiasts, Chibnall’s Death at the White Hart is a nice, creepy little murder mystery set in a small English village with a satisfying sprinkling of spooky folkloric horror.⚡️📚💙

On sale in Canada today! And the Thursday Murder Club is as devilishly delightful as ever. ⚡️📚💙

An extraordinary memoir: via a touching & profound tribute to his parents, Flanagan muses on the radical importance of fiction, the interconnectedness of everything, how cruelty visited upon others is cruelty visited upon us all, & the miracle of life that we only understand when life ebbs away.💡📚💙

More than a journey around Britain & Ireland via archaeological sites, Peter Ross’ captivating new book gathers stories about the people (past & present) who keep those sites & their history alive. He gives us a vital sense of the ancients that can serve as examples, guides, & cautionary tales.💡📚💙

Following one wolf on his remarkable journey across Europe, Weymouth gives us an engrossing look at the biology, history, & lore of the wolf in Europe, but also a thoughtful & balanced examination of fear, prejudice, migration, & the broad, life-altering consequences of climate change.💡📚💙

Li’s deeply profound, courageous book is a meditation on living through incomprehensible loss. Dedicated to her late son James, her book examines the fact of his suicide, & that of his brother 6 years earlier, from a place of radical acceptance. Life, impossibly & incontrovertibly, carries on.💡📚💙

British archaeologist Leary takes the reader on a personal & professional journey through the ancient movement of people. It sometimes seems that travel, immigration, mass refugee migration are modern issues, but Leary shows these are part of the human story, right from our very beginnings. 💡📚💙

In Proto, science journalist Spinney makes the very complicated study of the origins of languages comprehensible for the rest of us. It helps that she focuses on one language group (Proto-Indo-European) & explains the huge leaps forward in understanding provided by DNA & computer technologies. 💡📚💙