This is the best book I’ve read in this genre – this genre being loosely-related personal essays by female comedians. I’d say by comedians period, but I haven’t read any books by male comedians, and since Trump got elected I haven’t been able to read any books by men. Amy Poehler’s Yes Please leaned too … Continue reading Bossypants by Tina Fey
For a long while, if ever someone forced me to pick a favourite author, I would say J. D. Salinger. I love the simplicity of his sentences. I love the way he conveys annoyance and miscommunication within scenes. I love that he hates phoneys. Franny and Zooey was always my least-favourite Salinger, but I thought … Continue reading Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Roz Chast is a cartoonist for The New Yorker, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? is a memoir about caring for her parents in their final years. In both her illustrations and her writing, Chast demonstrates great talent for finding telling details – the bits of gesture and paraphernalia that reveal mountains about … Continue reading Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
This book is a gift. The more I read, the more I wondered why Chelsea Vowel was giving it to us ignoramus colonizers. We clearly don’t deserve it. We’ve been taught these lessons a million times over the last 150 years and we continue to be racist assholes, and yet Indigenous people continue to patiently … Continue reading Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel
Birdie tells the story of a young Cree woman from her childhood on reserve in Northern Alberta, through foster care and street life in Edmonton, to young adulthood in coastal BC where years of piled-up trauma force her into a near-coma. It also tells the story of “Canada 150” with the band-aid pulled off, all … Continue reading Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
Hag-Seed is Margaret Atwood’s modern re-telling of The Tempest, part of a series of Shakespeare reinterpretations by best-selling authors. Atwood sets hers in a prison theater program, with a disgraced director who used to run a Stratford-like festival. The novel is faithful and creative in its interpretation of Shakespeare, giving laymen an appreciation for The … Continue reading Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Fatty Legs is a short chapter book for elementary school children, telling the true story of eight-year-old Olemaun (Margaret) Pokiak-Fenton’s two years in residential school in the 1940’s. The vocabulary is basic but the writing is artful, evoking both a place and a culture, so this is not just a book for kids. The subject matter … Continue reading Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, Illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes
The dust jacket for this wee novel describes it as a cross between The Little Prince and The Alchemist. I cannot disagree – it is light and open-hearted like The Little Prince, and it ponders life’s big questions like The Alchemist – but it pales in comparison to both. Like author Francois Lelord, Hector is … Continue reading Hector and the Search for Happiness by François Lelord
When I think of Heather O’Neill I think of whimsical characters and spectacular similes, and stories that rip by like a stolen Model-T. But they’re heartbreaking and sad, too. Why do I pick them up like a long-lost teddy bear, hoping for happiness? They always touch on poverty, they always touch on abuse and illness, … Continue reading The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill
At first this book falls in easily beside other comedic memoirs by Amy Poehler, Mindy Khaling, and Tina Fey. At first it reads like stream-of-consciousness, or really, like a stand-up routine, and I yearn for a hard edit and a more literary writer. But that’s only at first. You Can’t Touch My Hair (And Other … Continue reading You Can’t Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson
Amy Attas 