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Review: Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto by Shawn Micallef

Review: Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto by Shawn Micallef

Book Review

**** (4/5)

I’m a big fan of this book! I picked up a copy at the Coach House Wayzgoose party and soon started to read it on my streetcar rides to work. What a great way to read about the city, as you drive through different neighbourhoods that are described in the book you’re reading.
Shawn Micallef describes various ‘walks’ through areas of Toronto, giving historical or trivial detail about the buildings & sites, past and present. It’s a similar experience to going on a guided walking tour, only this time you re-create images of the city in your head.

It definitely helps if you are fairly well acquainted with Toronto’s various neighbourhoods. I admit I turned first to the walks in the areas I’m most familiar with. In that respect, it’s really a book for Torontonians only. I would not recommend this to anyone who hasn’t lived here. But, if you do live in Toronto, and enjoy the flaneur experience – this is the book for you!

Review: Some Great Idea by Edward Keenan

Review: Some Great Idea by Edward Keenan

Book Review

Read this book if you live in Toronto. City politics reporter Edward Keenan has unveiled his analysis of Toronto since amalgamation, examining how neighbourhoods have grown and how they respond to different policies and developments based on their unique circumstances. Framed by this primer on urban development comes Keenan’s analysis of the three mayors since amalgamation: Mel Lastman, David Miller and Rob Ford.

While Keenan is no fan of Rob Ford, he gives what I see as a fair, almost magnanimous, analysis of Ford’s strengths and weaknesses as mayor. If you want to understand Rob Ford, and why he was elected, read this book!

Fun stuff!

Take the quiz. (Hint: only take this after you’ve read this book unless you think you’re a real Toronto trivia smartypants!)

— Some Great Idea: Good Neighbourhoods, Crazy Politics and the Invention of Toronto by Edward Keenan is published by Coach House (book page) in 2013.

Review: Monoceros by Suzette Mayr

Review: Monoceros by Suzette Mayr

Book Review

MonocerosAt the centre of Suzette Mayr’s novel is Patrick Furey, a senior in high school who commits suicide after he is dumped by his secret boyfriend and is bullied by his boyfriend’s girlfriend (it’s complicated). From this shocking event unf olds the stories of seven people whose lives are deeply changed as a result of the suicide in their midst. It’s not so much that these people were close to Patrick, but that they are startled awake and find crises in their own lives.

Monoceros is a beautiful novel. I searched for other words to describe the book, but “beautiful” truly captures its essence in so many ways. Mayr writes in sparing prose, with an unconventional lack of quotation-marked dialogue (don’t worry, she uses em-dashes like the French). Her triumph is the seven alternating perspectives, in which each character leaps from the page full-formed and truly sympathetic. Characters doesn’t get much page space at a time, maybe two or three pages, but their stories, emotions, and reactions are concise and heartfelt.

While I would describe this as a very literary novel, it’s also very accessible to readers, with none of that obtuseness some literary prose. The literariness comes from the perfection and beauty in the writing, the careful threading together of the disparate lives of seven characters, and the searing examination of how hiding your true self can lead to a lot of hurt.

Monoceros by Suzette Mayr is published by Coach House Books, 2011.

Review: Lemon by Cordelia Strube

Review: Lemon by Cordelia Strube

Book Review

LemonWhen I started to read Lemon and was about 80 pages into the text, I represented the protagonist as a female, twenty-first century Holden Caulfield. Lemon is stuck in teenage-land with a set of unruly and imbalanced parents and some very messed up peers and teachers. As she navigates life, from her home where her agoraphobic stepmother mopes around, to her shitty job at the mall, to hang out with her popularity-obsessed BFF, to the sick kids hospital where she volunteers, Lemon glides through life by separating herself from the chaos around her, reading and ridiculing classic literature and citing ‘Sick Facts’ about humanity. By the time I had completed Lemon, I was no longer sure that she was a Holden Caulfield figure. Rather, the novel has a strong feminist message (one that Stieg Larsson would approve of) that is not found in The Catcher in the Rye. Cordelia Strube takes her character beyond teenage angst; Lemon has true reason to be wary of growing up into the adults she sees trapped in lives of their own making. At times this is a difficult story to read. Don’t let that dissuade you, though.

I was very impressed with Corelia Strube’s writing, and her ability to create a convincing and consistent voice for Lemon, the narrator of the novel. I intend to check out more books by Strube.

Book Review: Fifteen Dogs

Book Review: Fifteen Dogs

Book Review

I finally finished reading Fifteen Dogs. I say finally because it’s been on my list since last fall when it won Canada’s most prestigious fiction prize, the Giller Prize. I also say finally because I’ve been reading it in fits and starts over the past month. Not because it hasn’t held my attention but simply because I’ve been busy with reading for work and for my book club.

However drawn out my reading of this book, I can truly say this book is a literary masterpiece and well deserving of its many award nods. It’s successful in the way it has a driven, exciting and not wholly predictable plot, yet also is laden with layers of meaning and substance that left me as a reader thinking and wondering. I love a book that you can analyse.

I didn’t think I could love a book about dogs. Dogs are the main characters, however they stand as allegorical figures that allows the reader to think about the human condition: what it means to be human, to love, to create art and poetry. What makes us human? Our language, our culture, our instincts, our relationships? These are just some of the questions arising from the narrative in Fifteen Dogs.

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis is published by Coach House Books in 2015.