ottawareviewofbooks

Finally, things are warming up in the Great White North! People are taking their travel trailers out of storage, opening up their summer cottages and planning exciting trips. Or they're just kicking back for a staycation with a cool drink. Whatever your plans, make room for a good book. Perhaps one of this month's selection will interest you? In our May issue, our core reviewers...

Reviewed by Ian Thomas Shaw Although not a new book—it was published in 2018—Marcello Di Cintio’s account of his encounters with Palestinian writers continues to leave an indelible impression on readers. Rather than offering a sweeping history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or a journalistic catalogue of atrocities and diplomatic failures, Di Cintio approaches Palestine thr...

Reviewed by Wayne Ng Many writers begin with the premise that families are complicated and surviving trauma is a lifelong odyssey. Lindsay Wong’s Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies makes that maxim seem quaint. Her latest novel is one of the boldest and most original Canadian works in recent memory: a grotesque, darkly funny, emotionally intelligent book that fuses immi...

Reviewed by Jerry Levy The unnamed protagonist in Nora Gold’s Doubles is a math whiz, akin to a prodigy. Only 12-years-old, she is highly adept at it, loves the process, its complexity, and is able to make sense of the world with numbers. She attributes human behaviour to them. The number 1, for example, goes hand-in-hand with loneliness (and also the number of teeth left in her...

Reviewed by Robert Runté Editor Terese Mason Pierre has collected ten fabulous (in both senses of the word) stories by Black Canadians into what has instantly become one of my all-time favourite anthologies, As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories. The opening story, Chimedum Ohaegbu’s, “Ravenous, Called Iffy”, sets the tone. There is a dream-like quality to the ...