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Critic’s Picks

Zed Book Club contributors review 8 of the best novels they've read so far this year / BY Zed Staff / January 20th, 2023


When you read a good book, you want to share it with the world. Zed contributors devour hundreds of titles every year, and although it’s only January, we’ve got a head start on some great books we know you will love. From Celeste Ng’s dystopian America, where anti-Asian hate has become government law, to a neo-noir crime novel set in Hollywood and a delightful romp coming-of-age story set in Montreal during Expo ’67, these fictional worlds are guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. 

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1Everybody Knowsby Jordan Harper

 

Home Base: Los Angeles, Calif.

Authors Take: I had all of this energy to tell a big, epic L.A. crime story that I had built up to do five seasons of LA Confidential,” the Edgar Award-winning television writer said about the James Ellroy novel adaptation. When the pilot didn’t get picked up, “I decided to harness that energy, but to do something very different, which was to set it in right now.”

Favourite Line: “Nobody talks, but everybody whispers.”

Review: It’s only January, but Harper may have delivered the noir of the year. He wastes no time dropping us into the action as Mae, a hard-hearted, 32-year-old PR operative at L.A.’s top crisis management firm (“we don’t get the good news out – we keep the bad news in”), arrives to clean up a starlet’s latest mess at the Chateau Marmont, “the hippest no-tell hotel in the world.” In lean episodic chapters, we follow Mae’s interior monologue as she goes about quashing scandals; they alternate with those of ex-cop Chris, a muscled employee for a private security firm, until their stories converge over a case. But then, no one is ever more than a few degrees of separation from anyone else in Los Angeles: city politics and Hollywood power are bedfellows in a toxic system, and the present commingles with layers of the city’s haunted past.

To encompass the sprawling reach of Hollywood capitalism and power dynamics, the novel has a wide scope, invoking the classic noir tradition of Raymond Chandler’s detective fiction and stylish cinematic updates like Chinatown, while also capturing a timely portrait through specific (and often darkly funny) observations and asides. (“D-level famous” refers to social media influencers, not mysterious dames.) Yet for all its L.A. lore and seedy underbelly, Everybody Knows never feels laboured, self-consciously mannered or like a throwback homage. This is a vital, thrilling, neo-noir page-turner so up-to-the minute it not only speaks of today, but of tomorrow: There’s the #MeToo nature of Hollywood culture, but also encampments of unhoused residents targeted by arsonists and filmmakers – criminals of another stripe – who skimp on safety protocols to save time and money, with fatal consequences. A story involving crime, according to Chandler’s 10 legendary writing commandments, “must be about real people in a real world.” Here, corruption and complicity are just two limbs of the many-tentacled monster that is contemporary Los Angeles – a city that is, as the novel reminds us, above all else a company town. – Nathalie Atkinson


2Last Winterby Carrie Mac

Home Base: Vancouver, B.C.

Authors Take: “Last Winter is dear to my heart,” the author declared on Twitter last year about the novel informed by her lived experience as a former paramedic, a widow and a parent living with bipolar 1 disorder. “Years and years in the making, yet each time I read it, it grips me as if for the first time.”

Favourite Line: “The clothes were a pile of hibernating sneakers, legs and sleeves and underwear tangled and warm and filthy, undulating.”

Review: The publisher plugs Last Winter as CanLit comparable to Fredrik Backman’s Beartown trilogy, and in some ways that’s true given the quirky characters, the immersive natural setting of the B.C. Rockies and the way a local tragedy affects everyone in a tight-knit town. But there’s very little of the warm uplift of those international bestsellers here. At times a harrowing work of social realism, this family drama can admittedly be hard going – it doesn’tt avert its gaze from suicidal ideation, the sexualization of children or childhood neglect, for example.

The novel covers before, during and after an avalanche that has left five children dead. One of two survivors is eight-year-old Ruby, whose father, Gus, is a wilderness guide who ran the local outdoor gear store. Gus was leading a field trip for middle-schoolers on survival course, and is also presumed dead. Ruby’s mother Fiona lives with mental illness, and the prose does a remarkable job getting inside her head – conveying her internal logic and struggles – and describing how she is on the receiving end of both the empathy and judgment that comes with being part of a small community. The family was dysfunctional before the calamity, and shifts in timeline and points of view explore how Ruby and her mother are now spiralling in their own way. It’s an evocative and visceral work of cold comfort. – Nathalie Atkinson


3Killers of a Certain Ageby Deanna Raybourn 

Home Base: Virginia

Author’s Take: “I’m not sure I’ve ever had as much fun with any group of characters as I have with the cast of Killers of a Certain Age. They are the brashest, ballsiest, most badass assassins, and their special skill is hiding in plain sight – because you can’t guard against what you don’t see.”

Favourite Line: “We looked like a girl gang that would have the Queen as our leader, all low heels and no-nonsense curls.”

Review: The social phenomenon known as “invisible woman syndrome” refers to studies showing older women aren’t well represented in media, and many feel less relevant and overlooked as they age.

Raybourn plays with those cultural expectations, turning that invisibility into an advantage. Best known for her historical mysteries (the Veronica Speedwell and Lady Julia Grey series), the author sets her latest book in the contemporary world, delivering a novel that’s part international spy thriller, part heist and all fun.

Billie Webster, Helen Randolph, Mary Alice Tuttle and Natalie Schuyler are assassins who are about to retire from their clandestine organization, the Museum. Recruited fresh out of college in the 1970s, they’ve travelled the world taking out arms dealers, sex traffickers and even hunting down a Nazi war criminal. “Forty years on one of the most elite assassin squads on earth and it finished like this, with a free cruise and a bouncy letter from a girl who signed her letters with hash tags,” bemoans Billie.

Not long into an all-expenses paid retirement vacation, the foursome realizes the Museum has targeted them for termination – it’s kill or be killed. Using their old-school talents and the fact that everyone underestimates women of a certain age, they work together to figure out why their agency has turned against them. 

As the narrative bounces back and forth between their earlier assignments  and their current predicament, readers are treated to a compelling tale about older women kicking ass and taking names. – Athena McKenzie


4Hell Bentby Leigh Bardugo

Home Base: Los Angeles, Calif.

Author’s Take:  “Alex engages with the world with a kind of gallows humour that is very close to my heart, and I think I felt a little freer to let some of chaos in, in Hell Bent. ”

Favourite Line: “It turned out taking dictation letter by letter from a reanimated corpse took a long time, and it was 2 a.m. when they finally finished the ritual.”

Review: Reading a sequel to a book you loved is always fraught: you hope for the best, but you’ve been disappointed before, so you approach the new book with a heady mix of excitement and trepidation. At least, that’s how I approached Hell Bent, the sequel to Bardugo’s delightfully original, utterly enthralling 2019 novel, Ninth House.

I won’t keep you in suspense: Hell Bent is just as good as Ninth House, a natural continuation of the first book that builds on its strengths and the reader’s previous experience with the dark world Bardugo has created.

Ninth House introduced readers to Galaxy “Alex” Stern, 20, a freshman at Yale University, and a high school dropout with a violent, drug-riddled past. She also has the ability to see ghosts. 

That gift – or curse – leads to her recruitment (in the aftermath of a brutal crime) by Lethe House, a secret organization created to “monitor” Yale’s secret societies, the eight Houses of the Veil. These societies – including Skull & Bones, Aurelian, and Bone & Key – actually exist, and boast significant alumni (John Kerry and both George Bushes were Bonesmen, for example); Bardugo herself was a member of Wolf’s Head. In the novel, these societies all practice different sorts of magic, from divination to transfiguration, and it’s up to Lethe House to make sure they play by the rules.

Lethe House gives Alex a “full ride to Yale, the new start that had scrubbed her past clean like a chemical burn.” As she struggles with her classes, and trying to fit into a completely different world, she also spends her nights supervising rituals, reporting infractions and witnessing things she can barely comprehend.

When a young New Haven woman is murdered on campus, Alex is drawn into the investigation, despite the fact the victim is from “town” and, according to her superiors, of little consequence to Lethe. After all, none of the Houses could possibly be involved, could they?

Hell Bent begins where Ninth House left off: one of Alex’s closest associates is missing, and when two faculty members are murdered, Lethe House turns against her.

If I’m being coy about details, you’re right. Bardugo’s two novels are a dizzying blend of mystery, fantasy, coming-of-age story, history and campus novel, and much of the joy of the books comes from their unique unpredictability: they’re like nothing else you’ve  likely read, and they’re best approached as free from pre-knowledge as possible. Bardugo writes with a casual but immersive style, interweaving rituals and lore with Alex’s acerbic, sarcastic voice, creating a magical reading experience.  Hell Bent and its predecessor are both page-turners of the highest order, and even readers who usually avoid fantasy will find themselves drawn in. – Robert Wiersema


5Nosy Parkerby Lesley Crewe

Home Base: Homeville, N.S.

Author’s Take: “There is a character based on my dad, but isn’t exactly my father. I felt him with me as I was writing this one.”

Favourite Line: “I need to find out more about my mother, and quickly. If I’m making friends left, right and centre, I require a more interesting story to tell the Mrs. Andrewses of the world. Just saying I have a dead mom is not going to cut it.”

Review: The Cape Breton-based author is beloved in Atlantic Canada, where fans of her tender writing and down-east humour eagerly await each new novel (12 and counting). With Nosy Parker, Crewe heads west to Montreal, where she was raised, and all the way back to the summer of 1967, when hordes of Canadians made the pilgrimage to Expo. 

Nosy is the nickname bestowed on 12-year-old Audrey Rosemary Parker by her 55-year-old father, a writer and publisher who is raising her in a Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) duplex. Like Harriet the Spy, Nosy eavesdrops on, and watches, her neighbours, writing her observations down in a stack of notebooks. 

The story is as much about finding community as the mystery of what happened to Nosy’s mother, who died when she was three. The pre-teen is surrounded by strong, independent women, from her father’s disapproving sister, Aunt Moo, to the friendly chain-smoking Jewish neighbour, Mrs. Weiner, to Sofia, the mother of a Greek classmate who treats her like a daughter.

At its sweet centre, it is a coming-of-age story, full of wit and whimsy, about Nosy finding her place in the world. Boomers will appreciate cultural references to Cap’n Crunch and Swanson’s TV dinners, schoolyard games with marbles and rubber balls and the Beatles singing “Paperback Writer” on the radio. Montrealers will revel in memories of shopping trips to Ogilvy’s, sightings of author Mordecai Richler and a trip to Orange Julep near Décarie Boulevard.   

As Nosy matures, she begins to see her father in a more human light and, after deploying all her detective skills, tracks down the truth about her mother’s short life. The novel conveys all the sorrowful truths of mortal existence, but is suffused with an irrepressible exuberance that will leave readers crying tears of laughter. – Kim Honey


6Our Missing Heartsby Celeste Ng

Home Base: Cambridge, Mass.

Author’s Take: “It was a way of exploring the world we were in, and the issues I was struggling with in my own life. Such as: How are you supposed to raise a child in a world that feels like it is totally falling apart?”

Favourite Line: “When he sees his name, his old name, on the envelope, a door inside him creaks open and a draft snakes in.”

Review: This story from the author of Little Fires Everywhere beautifully captures the expanding awareness of 12-year-old Noah, who starts to question why he had to abandon his nickname, Bird, when his mother disappeared, why she left and how she could live without her husband and son.

When he receives a letter addressed to Bird and opens it to find a single sheet of paper covered in tiny doodles of cats, it awakens long-buried memories of his mom, who was born in the United States to Hong Kong immigrants. The letter is a message, he is sure, and he promptly begins a clandestine quest to find her. As Bird searches, he starts to grasp the magnitude of the anti-Asian racism that has gripped America, culminating in the federal government’s Preserving American Culture and Traditions (PACT) Act. It not only bans books by Asian authors, it removes children from parents who “espouse harmful views” and rehomes them with families who will raise them “to protect American values.”

Bird heads to the library, where he looks for a book of Japanese folklore that contains a story his mother read to him as a child, about a boy who loved cats. Along the way, he realizes the empty shelves represent a whole history that has been erased – part of his story – and that his father’s over-protectiveness is designed to shield him from PACT’s nefarious policies and omnipresent informants. As he gets closer to finding his mother, Bird’s political awakening is stirred when he realizes anti-PACT resisters are everywhere, and their slogan – “our missing hearts” – is a line from a poem written by his mother.

At a time when government policies have separated children from their parents – from enslaved African Americans to Indigenous people to Mexican migrants – and anti-Asian hate crimes and racism spiked when the world blamed China for unleashing the coronavirus, it’s easy to see how Ng’s dystopian world is on our doorstep and poised for a home invasion. – Kim Honey


7We Spreadby Iain Reid

Home Base: Kingston, Ont.

Author’s Take: “When you reach your 90s … that’s a place in time or an age that we should – I think – value a lot more than we do. It seems to me that we just kind of diminish it or are scared of it.” 

Favourite Line: “Frames of mind aren’t built to last. They aren’t dependable. Even the sturdiest eventually dissolve and disappear.”

Review: In this psychological thriller by the author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe, Reid takes a premise most of us are familiar with – the failing memories of the aged – and makes it more frightening than a dementia diagnosis. Penny lives alone in the same apartment she’s lived in for 50 years, where she spends most of her time in a chair in front of the TV until she falls while changing a light bulb. She claims she is compos mentis, but hears voices coming from the empty apartment next door and discovers notes she has written to herself in the pockets of her cardigan: “There’s more bread in the freezer,” and “You always loved to dance.”

When she comes to, her landlord, Mike, is standing over her. He packs up her belongings, bundles her into his car and takes her to Six Cedars Residence, which he says she chose and her late husband paid for in advance.

The home is lovely, but Penny thinks it’s strange that there are just four residents. The manager, Shelley, gives off a sinister vibe, especially when she tells Penny she is not allowed to leave the building unaccompanied.

Six Cedars has good food, a comfy bed and Penny even starts painting again. She makes friends with Hilbert, a retired mathematician, and tolerates the loud and loquacious Ruth, but even as she admits her memory is failing her, little things start to niggle: The attendant, Jack, saying Shelley is obsessed, and Ruth saying Shelley will be livid if she catches them talking the hallway alcove. 

Is she losing her mind, or is Six Cedars driving her mad by making her think she is losing it? The reader is never sure as the story unspools in a taut plot that explores the invisibility of the elderly in society, and how that cloak makes them vulnerable to neglect, exploitation and abuse. Penny’s blossoming friendship with Hilbert makes her realize society may lump all old people together as if they were an amorphous mass, but each is a unique individual with their own experiences and memories, even if they can’t recall them. – Kim Honey


8The Animalsby Cary Fagan

Home Base: Toronto

Author’s Take: “I was thinking about both the human and natural environments, our hubris, and the ways in which we like to think about animals – as creatures like ourselves, only cuter and not as smart, there to serve our emotional needs.”

Favourite Line: “I thought of getting something bigger, but a mink seemed like an animal the ladies might like.”

Review: In this strange and mystical tale, we meet Dorn, 38, a lovelorn, architecture-school dropout who makes miniature-scale models for shop windows in a little tourist village (the location is never disclosed, but it has a Scandinavian feel). Just as he gets a strange commission from an anonymous benefactor to build a model of a building on fire, the village starts the Wild Home Project, and residents start adopting wild animals as pets. His neighbour, Leev, takes in a female wolf, and has to get stitched up after the animal attacks him. His brother, Vin, the village Lothario and a property developer with questionable ethics, chooses a mink. As Dorn pines for Ravenna, a teacher, and reveres the reclusive celebrity author, Horla, he stumbles upon a body in the park. 

All these disparate threads are woven together in a delightful mystery with dark undertones and a philosophical bent, as Dorn questions the human proclivity to subjugate nature to satisfy our rapacious wants and needs. Fagan, a nominee for both the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize, has written many books for children, and this novel has been described as having a fairy-tale feel. I don’t disagree, but I warn you it’s more Little Match Girl than Sleeping Beauty. – Kim Honey


THE SCROLL

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2024 Giller Prize: Noah Richler, Kevin Chong and Molly Johnson Among Jury MembersAuthor Noah Richler is chairing the jury for this year's Giller Prize, an award's body his father literary icon Mordecai Richler helped launch in 1994.


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2023 Booker Prize: Irish Writer Paul Lynch Wins For Dystopian ‘Prophet Song’Canadian Booker Prize jury chair Esi Edugyan called the novel a "a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave."


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Governor General’s Literary Awards: Anuja Varghese’s ‘Chrysalis’ Among This Year’s WinnersEach of the 14 writers, illustrators and translators will receive a prize of $25,000


Giller Prize Winner Suzette Mayr Among Finalists Shortlisted for 2023 Governor General’s Literary AwardsThe 14 winners, who will each receive a prize of $25,000, will be announced Nov. 8


Five Authors Shortlisted for This Year’s $100,000 Scotiabank Giller PrizeDionne Irving and Kevin Chong are among the finalists who "probe what it means to be human, to survive, and to be who we are"


Norway’s Jon Fosse Wins Nobel Literature Prize for Giving “Voice to the Unsayable”The author's work has been translated into more than 40 languages, and there have been more than 1,000 different productions of his plays.


Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist Recognizes 12 Authors Who Demonstrate “the Power of Human Imagination”The 2023 longlist includes the prize's 2005 winner David Bergen and debut novelist Deborah Willis. 


Duke and Duchess of Sussex Buy Film Rights to Canadian Author Carley Fortune’s ‘Meet Me at the Lake’Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have purchased the movie rights to the bestselling romantic novel, which was published in May this year.


Booker Prize Longlist ‘Defined by its Freshness’ as Nominees RevealedEsi Edugyan, chair of the 2023 judges, said each of the 13 novels "cast new light on what it means to exist in our time."


Barack Obama Releases His 2023 Summer Reading ListThe list includes the latest novel by Canadian-born New Zealand author Eleanor Catton.


David Suzuki Takes Inspiration From His Own Grandchildren for New Kid’s Book ‘Bompa’s Insect Expedition’The book features Suzuki and two of his grandchildren exploring the insect population in their own backyard.


Milan Kundera, Author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, Dies at 94Kundera won global accolades for the way he depicted themes and characters that floated between the mundane reality of everyday life and the lofty world of ideas.


Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Dark Genius of American Literature, Dead at 89McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2006 novel 'The Road.'


Remembering the Life and Loves of Literary Bad Boy Martin AmisThe legendary British author has died at 73. His absence will be keenly felt, but Amis leaves behind a book shelf’s worth of novels, including 'London Fields', 'Money' and 'Success', filled with shambolic anti-heroes raising a finger at society. 


Sophie Grégoire Trudeau to Publish Two Books Related to Mental Health and Wellness With Penguin Random House CanadaThe upcoming releases include a wellness book for adults and a picture book for children, which will roll out over the next two years.


Queen Camilla Celebrated Her Love of Books by Having Some Embroidered on Her Coronation GownThe Queen's coronation gown also featured tributes to her children, grandchildren and rescue dogs embroidered into it.


Better Late Than Never: Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Unpublished Novel Set for Release in 2024'En Agosto Nos Vemos' or 'We'll See Each Other in August' was deemed by the late author's family to be too important to stay hidden


End of an Era: Eleanor Wachtel leaves CBC Radio’s ‘Writers & Company’ After More Than Three Decades on the AirAfter a career interviewing what she describes as the "finest minds in the world," the long-time radio host says she's ready to begin a new chapter.


Canadian Independent Bookstore Day Features Deals, Contests and ReadingsOn Saturday, every book purchased at an indie store qualifies you to enter the Book Lovers Contest, with a chance to win gift cards worth up to $1,000


Translation Project Will Bring Literature From the South Asian Continent to English-Speaking AudiencesThe SALT project aims to translate and publish 40 works by authors from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka


The Book Thief: An Italian Man’s Guilty Plea Ends a Caper That Puzzled the Literary World for YearsFilippo Bernardini’s elaborate phishing scam netted 1,000 unpublished manuscripts by prominent authors including Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan


The Late Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison Is Honoured with an American StampThe Obamas and Oprah Winfrey pay tribute to the writer whose poetic interpretations of the African American experience gained a world-wide audience


Five Canadian Writers Make the Long List for the Inaugural Carol Shields Prize for FictionThe US$150,000 English-language literary award for female and nonbinary writers redresses the inequality of women in the publishing world


The Furry Green Grump is Back in a Sequel to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”Dr. Seuss Enterprises will publish “How the Grinch Lost Christmas!” in September


Chris Hadfield to Publish a Sequel to His Blockbuster Debut, “The Apollo Murders,” on Oct. 10"The Defector” brings the Cold War intrigue from space to Earth as the Soviets and Americans race to develop fighter jets


Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ Continues to Break Worldwide RecordsThe book also seems to have put a dent in the popularity of members of the Royal Family — including the Prince and Princess of Wales.


Prince Harry’s Memoir Breaks U.K. Sales Record On First Day of ReleaseThe publisher of the new memoir, 'Spare", says it had sold 400,000 copies so far across hardback, e-book and audio formats.


Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of 2022The former U.S. president’s 13 titles include Canadians Emily St. John Mandel and Kate Beaton, as well as tomes from Michelle Obama, George Saunders and Jennifer Egan


Here are the 5 Books on Bill Gates’ Holiday Reading ListThe billionaire philanthropist is giving hundreds of copies to little libraries around the world


Sheila Heti and Eli Baxter Among 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award WinnersToronto writer Sheila Heti took home the fiction award for 'Pure Colour,' a novel the GG peer assessment committee called "a work of genius."


Suzette Mayr Wins $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize for ‘The Sleeping Car Porter’The 2022 Giller Prize jury called Mayr's novel "alive and immediate — and eerily contemporary."


Writers’ Trust of Canada Awards: Authors Nicholas Herring, Dan Werb Nab Top PrizesThe Writers' Trust of Canada awards amounted to a combined monetary prize value of $270,000.


Bob Dylan Releases ‘The Philosophy of Modern Song,’ a Book of Essays Dissecting 66 Influential SongsIn his new book, Bob Dylan offers up both critique and historical insight into various musical recordings of the last century by a variety of popular artists.


Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Spare’ Will Be Published in January 2023The long-awaited memoir will tell with "raw unflinching honesty" Prince Harry's journey from "trauma to healing", his publisher said on Thursday.


Sri Lankan Author Shehan Karunatilaka Wins 2022 Booker PrizeKarunatilaka won the prestigious prize on Monday for his second novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’, about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife.


Canadian Council for the Arts Reveals Governor General’s Literary Awards FinalistsThe finalists for the Governor General's Literary Awards spotlight books in both the English and French language, as well as translated works.


New Penguin Random House Award Named After Michelle Obama Will Honour High School WritersMichelle Obama Award for Memoir will provide a $10,000 college scholarship to a graduating public school senior based on their autobiographical submission.


French Author Annie Ernaux, 82, Becomes First French Woman to Win Nobel Prize for LiteratureThe author said, of winning, that "I was very surprised ... I never thought it would be on my landscape as a writer."


Hilary Mantel, Award-Winning British Author of ‘Wolf Hall’ Trilogy, Dies at 70Wolf Hall, published in 2009, and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, released three years later, both won the Booker Prize, an unprecedented win for two books in the same trilogy and making Mantel the first woman to win the award twice.


Prince William “Cannot Forgive” Prince Harry, According to ‘The New Royals’ Author Katie NichollPrince William “just cannot forgive his brother,” according to Katie Nicholl, author of 'The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown.'


Five Finalists Announced for Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for NonfictionThe winner — to be announced on November 2 — will take home the annual $60,000 prize.


Peter Straub, Bestselling American Horror Writer, Dies at 79Friend and co-author Stephen King has said the author's 1979 book, "Ghost Story," is his favourite horror novel.


Rawi Hage, Billy-Ray Belcourt and Sheila Heti Make the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize Long ListThe jury read 138 books to choose 14 titles for the long list, one of which will win the $100,000 prize, one of the richest in Canadian literature


Salman Rushdie, Novelist Who Drew Death Threats, Is Stabbed at New York LectureThe Indian-born novelist who was ordered killed by Iran in 1989 because of his writing, was attacked before giving a talk on artistic freedom.


Raymond Briggs, Creator of Beloved Children’s Tale ‘The Snowman’, Dies at 88First published in 1978, the pencil crayon-illustrated wordless picture book sold more than 5.5 million copies around the world while a television adaption became a Christmas favourite in Britain and was nominated for an Oscar.


Canadian Author Emily St. John Mandel Makes Barack Obama’s 2022 Summer Reading ListObama's list includes everything from fiction to books on politics, cultural exploration and basketball.


Canadian Author Rebecca Eckler to Launch RE:books Publishing House Focused on Female Authors and Fun ReadsThe former National Post columnist says her tagline is ‘What’s read is good, and what’s good is read.’”


Brian Thomas Isaac’s “All the Quiet Places” wins $5,000 Indigenous Voices AwardThe B.C. author, a retired bricklayer, drew on his childhood growing up on the Okanagan Indian reserve for his coming-of-age story set in 1956


Canadian-American Author Ruth Ozeki Wins Women’s Book Prize for “The Book of Form and Emptiness”The UK judges said her fourth novel, inspired in part by the Vancouver Public Library, contained "sparkling writing, warmth, intelligence, humour and poignancy."


The Bill Gates Summer Reading List Includes a Sci-Fi Novel On Gender Inequality Suggested by His DaughterBill Gates' summer reading list includes fiction and non-fiction titles that cover gender equality, political polarization and climate change.


American novelist Joshua Cohen wins the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “The Netanyahus”The 2022 Pulitzer prizes include this satirical look at identity politics, focused on the father of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a crucial time in the Jewish state’s history


Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro Among Canadian Authors Recognized in Commemorative Reading List Marking Queen’s Platinum JubileeThe authors are among six Canadian scribes included on the The Big Jubilee Read list.


Queen Elizabeth II’s Aide Reveals Details of Life in Royal Pandemic Lockdown in New Addition to BookAngela Kelly, who's worked for the Queen for 20 years, discusses everything from cutting the Queen's hair to "the light and laughter that was shared ... even in the darkest moments."


New Leonard Cohen Story Collection, ‘A Ballet of Lepers,’ Set for October ReleaseThe collection features a novel, short stories and a radio play written between 1956 and 1961.


Archived Letters Reveal How Toni Morrison Helped MacKenzie Scott Meet Future Husband Jeff BezosBezos hired Scott at the hedge fund where he worked after receiving a recommendation from Morrison. Shortly thereafter, the pair married and Scott helped Bezos launch Amazon.


Prince Harry’s Memoir is Set to Rock the MonarchyFriends say the California-based royal got a million-pound book deal to write "an intimate take on his feeling about the family."


European Jewish Congress Asks Publisher to Pull Anne Frank BookThe Congress says 'The Betrayal of Anne Frank' has "deeply hurt the memory of Anne Frank, as well as the dignity of the survivors and the victims of the Holocaust."


Canadian Author Details Anne Frank Cold-Case Investigation That Named Surprise Suspect in Her Family’s Betrayal in New BookAhead of the 75th anniversary of the publication of Frank's 'The Diary of a Young Girl' in June, a team that included a retired FBI agent and around 20 historians, criminologists and data specialists identified a relatively unknown figure as a leading suspect in revealing her family's hideout.


Man Who Tricked Authors Into Handing Over Unpublished Manuscripts Arrested by FBI in New YorkFilippo Bernardini, an employee of a well known publication house, has been arrested for stealing hundreds of unpublished manuscripts.


Hollywood Legend Betty White Has a Last Laugh in New Biographic Comic BookThe creators of the biographical comic book have released similar books about Hollywood legends like Carrie Fisher, Lucille Ball, David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor.


Barack Obama Reveals His List of Books That Left “A Lasting Impression” in 2021Obama's favourite 2021 reads include two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead's 'Harlem Shuffle' and 'Klara and the Sun,' by Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro


“Interview With the Vampire” Author Anne Rice Dies at 80 — Tributes Pour in From Stuart Townsend and OthersThe author, who was best known for her work in gothic fiction, died on Saturday evening as a result of complications from a stroke.


Norma Dunning wins $25,000 Governor General’s English fiction prize for ‘Tainna’The Edmonton-based Inuk writer explores themes of displacement, loneliness and spirituality in six short stories


Omar El Akkad wins $100,000 Giller prize for “What Strange Paradise”The former Globe and Mail reporter, who published "American War" to acclaim in 2017, tackles the global migrant refugee crisis in his second novel


South African Author Damon Galgut Wins the Booker Prize For ‘The Promise’Galgut received nominations for his 2003 and 2010 works before finally taking home the prize this year. 


Hollywood Legend Paul Newman Discusses Life, Acting and Aging Gracefully in Newly Discovered MemoirPublishers of the newly discovered memoir say the Hollywood legend wrote the book in the 1980s in response to the relentless media attention he received during that time.


Here’s What You Need to Know About the Toronto International Festival of AuthorsDirector Roland Gulliver lands in Toronto to open his second, much-expanded virtual festival with more than 200 events


Tanzanian Novelist Gurnah Wins 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for Depicting the Impact of Colonialism and Refugee StoriesGurnah, 72, is only the second writer from sub-Saharan Africa to win one of the world's most prestigious literary awards


Miriam Toews Garners Third Giller Prize Nomination for “Fight Night” after Shortlist AnnouncedSophomore efforts from novelists Omar El Akkad and Jordan Tannahill join debut books from Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia and Angélique Lalonde


Tina Brown’s New Book, ‘The Palace Papers’, Covers the Royal Family’s Reinvention After Diana’s Tragic DeathTina Brown's sequel to her 2007 release 'The Diana Chronicles' is set to hit shelves April 12, 2022. 


Audible.ca Releases Andrew Pyper’s Exclusive Audiobook “Oracle” For New Plus Catalogue LaunchThe thriller about a psychic FBI detective is one of 12,000 titles now available for free to members


Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen to Release Book Based On Their “Renegades” PodcastThe new book will feature a collection of candid, intimate and entertaining conversations


Prince Harry Will Publish a Memoir in Late 2022Harry says he's writing the book "not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become."


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