Last time I went to the mystery bookstore looking for something hard-boiled, I came out with A Philosophical Investigation (Doubleday) tucked under my arm. I have since returned to seek out author Philip Kerr's previous novels, the Berlin Noir trilog

A review of Michel Rabagliati's semi-autobiographical graphic novels, featuring tales of his boyhood in Quebec.

When eye-Dentical Twins (eye press) arrived in the office, everyone crowded around. The book is a collection of photographs from the newspaper eye weekly, in which two unlikely celebrities are paired and the resemblance is described in a witty cutlin

Patty Osborne reviews four new books from Mansfield Press.

Stephen Osborne reviews Mary Jo Bang's translation of Dante's Inferno.

Marlene Nourbese Philip achieved an inadvertent kind of fame as the woman June Callwood told to fuck off at a writers' conference some time ago. Her new book Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture (Mercury), makes it easy to see why.

For hard-core Blade Runner fans, or anyone interested in the filmmaking process, Paul M. Sammon's book Future Noir, The Making of Blade Runner (Harper Prism) is required reading.

I enjoyed Killer Angels so much that I pursued my Civil War studies by renting a video of Gettysburg, the made-for-TV movie based on the book. The movie clocks in at somewhere close to four hours, and you have to put up with a lot of famous American

Roni Simunovic reviews Ashley Little's BC Book Prize-winning novel, Anatomy of a Girl Gang, which follows the story of five teenage girls growing up in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Kelsea O'Connor reviews Nox by Anne Carson (New Directions).

My grandmother's picture stares down from the wall. She is very young and newly sexual. After reading Hanna’s Daughters (Orion), I thought this woman might exist in me.

Michael Hayward reviews Have You Seen...? by David Thomson (Knopf.)

Two recent books nicely illustrate, for me, the disturbing state of contemporary publishing. The first book, Hemingway: The Toronto Years (Doubleday) by William Burrill, a Toronto journalist, is a handsome example of the book-making art.

Kris Rothstein reviews Holding Still for as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall (Anansi).

In Hotel Sarajevo (Turtle Point Press), Jack Kersh has succeeded in translating his story into the thoughts and feelings of Alma, a fourteen-year-old girl who is caught in the hell of Sarajevo under siege. Alma is part of a group of war orphans who l

During a heated CBC Radio discussion about one of these trends—chronic fatigue syndrome, and whether it is a "real" or psychogenic illness—both callers and panelists were emotional and argumentative, straining the usually fair, thoughtful CBC Radio s

In Her Own Words: Women's Memoirs from Australia, New Zealand, Canada & the United States (Vintage), edited by Jill Ker Conway, is a book that invites browsing. All twelve of the memoirs here are excerpts of longer works, so many of the paragraphs en

Stephen Osborne reviews Imaging the Arctic, a collection of papers and photographs presented at a conference titled "Imaging the Arctic: The Native Photograph."

"From opposite ends of the country come two important books about Indians: one old and one new. The old is a reissue of Rolf Knight's Indians at Work." Review by Daniel Francis.

When a friend gave me a copy of the CD In Season by Freddie Stone (Unity Records) she warned me that it was a bit odd. The main instrument on this CD is a flugelhorn—which looks to be what you would get if you heated up a trumpet, stretched it out, a

Attention, Joyce Nelson fans: we no longer need to scan the contents pages of Canadian Forum and the Georgia Straight for her astute essays on culture. In June 1996, Nelson started publishing Lynx, a Monthly Newsletter in the Public Interest from Jam

A review of the Vanguard of the New Age, Gillian McCann's book about the Theosophical Society, which mixes western spiritualism and eastern mysticism.

A perfect book to keep beside the toilet, The Brick Reader (Coach House) is a collection of essays, interviews and reviews from Brick, the literary mag. There is something here for everyone interested in good writing, including two pieces by John Ber

The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship is the latest of Charles Bukowski's posthumously published books, of which there are at least five in the world (and possibly still more to come from the estimable Black Sparrow Pre

Lily Gontard Reviews The China Fantasy by James Mann (Penguin).

Gillian Jerome reviews The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Europa).

The English Patient (McClelland & Stewart) by Michael Ondaatje is just as good as everyone says it is; and surely contains some of the most compelling desert writing in the language (you will swear that Ondaatje must have spent most of his life in th

Sarah Maitland reviews The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Random House).

Two different novels about family dysfunction—This Is Where I Leave you and The Corrections—written by two different Jonathans. Reviewed by Jocelyn Kuang.

During a trip to Ireland last spring, I remembered Charles Foran's The Last House of Ulster: a Family in Belfast (HarperCollins), so when I got back to Canada I tracked it down at the library. It describes Foran's fourteen-year relationship with the

Michael Hayward reviews Cascadia: The Life and Breath of the World, co-edited by Trevor Carolan and Frank Stewart.

Speaking of the library, the day after I borrowed The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a book my brother had recommended, The Museum Guard (Knopf), also by Norman, arrived in the Geist office. For some reason I chose to read Th

Michael Hayward reviews The Paris Review Interviews, IV (Picador).

The first time I visited the new library I was planning only to look around. It was opening week and things were pretty busy.

The Noam Chomsky Lectures (Coach House) is a table play. For two hours Daniel Brooks and Guillermo Verdecchia sit behind a table and wage war on the Canadian Government and Big Business.

The latest book from Canada's Angry Young Playwright Brad Fraser includes a reprint of his infamous Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love alongside the screenplay of his recently produced film version Love and Human Remains (NeWest).

Mandelbrot reviews Vancouver Special by Charles Demers (Arsenal Pulp).

Books these days, like TV miniseries and major sporting events, come with their own parallel narratives, human interest stories designed to get the consumer's attention. Stephen Hawking's medical condition helped turn his difficult philosophical trea

Michael Turner reviews At the World's Edge: Curt Lang's Vancouver, 1937-1998, by Claudia Cornwall.

Wish Book (Gutter Press) by Derek McCormack. McCormack looks to the past to shatter the placid show window that the future promises us.

Patty Osborne reviews Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man’s World by Kate Braid.

Patty Osborne reviews Working with Wool, A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater by Sylvia Olsen.

Word of Mouth (Thistledown) is M.A.C. Farrant's fourth collection of fiction and is in two parts: stories about Sybilla, a nineteen-year-old mother struggling to survive in suburban Vancouver Island, stretching welfare cheques and coping with pervert

Michael Hayward reviews Blue Nights by Joan Didion (Knopf).

Mandelbrot reviews The Wage Slave's Glossary written by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell and illustrated by Seth.

In this essay, Daniel Francis discusses how Gerda Munsinger—a woman with ties to the criminal underworld—shaped Canadian politics in the 1960s.

Shades: The Whole Story of Doctor Tin (Arsenal Pulp) is the sequel to Tom Walmsley's cult masterpiece, Doctor Tin, which appeared in 1979 to rave reviews and stern warnings. Walmsley was quoted in the press at that time as having said "everything he

Mark Leiren-Young's Shylock (Anvil) is similar to The Noam Chomsky Lectures. In this one-man drama, Jon Davies, a Jewish actor who portrays Shylock in a cancelled production of The Merchant of Venice, is accused of betraying his fellow Jews and being

A review of Happy-Go-Lucky: Silver Islet Shenanigans, a creative non-fiction book by Bill MacDonald.

"A mild, or homeopathic, dose of the infinite is the crucial element in the aesthetic experience known as the sublime." A review of The Shell of the Tortoise.

Mary Schendlinger reviews SayWha?!, a monthly evening of “readings of deliciously rotten writing”.

A review of Chris Ware's unconventionally packaged book Building Stories, about the residents of an apartment building.

Neil MacDonald reviews Streeters, a compilation of Rick Mercer's solo rants and raves from 22 Minutes, covering everything from Mike Harris in a Speedo to "Canuba," a sovereignty association between Canada and Cuba.

The best pen-in-a-shirt-pocket photograph you will ever see is the author photo on the back cover of Joe Fiorito's new book, Tango on the Main (Nuage).

Halfway through The Amateur, An Independent Life of Letters by Wendy Lesser (Pantheon Books), I stopped reading long enough to tell a few people that this was a great book of essays. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut because from that point on I

"Awkwardness comes with loving someone too much or not enough." A review of Other People We Married by Emma Straub.

Speaking of the library, the day after I borrowed The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a book my brother had recommended, The Museum Guard (Knopf), also by Norman, arrived in the Geist office. For some reason I chose to read Th

The Blue Circus (Cormorant) by Jacques Savoie, also translated by Sheila Fischman. Same translator, different story. Here the prose flows smoothly from start to finish, and even features the word lexiphone, which I have never heard in any language.

The Special Canadian Edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac, from Yankee Publishing Inc., is subtitled "Fitted for Ottawa, with special corrections and calculations for all the Canadian provinces." Items of interest include "Who is the Canadian Farmer?,

The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law and First Nations by Dara Culhane (Talonbooks) is the book for anyone who wants to understand the Delga-muukw decision—how it happened, what it means and why the Supreme Court ruling last December has frea

A review of Garden Plots: Canadian Women Writers and Their Literary Gardens by Shelley Boyd.

Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman (HarperCollins) is subtitled "A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary," and is a thrilling, chilling yarn about language and a history of lexicography. Its bumptious

Kristen Cheung reviews The Secret Lives of Litterbugs by M.A.C. Farrant (Key Porter).

“I walked into the garage, and found a teenage boy in a tank top and shorts." Kathryn Mockler's poems eschew meaningless metaphors for direct language.

After the salt men pass a certain rock they all speak the salt language. Women are not allowed to hear this language, nor are they allowed to look in the direction of the lake where the salt language is spoken....The film is called The Salt Men of Ti

A review of The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, winner of Governor-General's Literary Award, the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, shortlisted for the Giller and the Man Booker Prize.

The UK literary journal, Flash, features concise forms of microfiction: short-short stories also known as "flashes".

Kris Rothstein reviews The Waterproof Bible by Andy Kaufman (Random House).

Kris Rothstein reviews The Virgin Spy by Krista Bridges (Douglas & McIntyre).

A thin little book, The Voice Imitator (University of Chicago Press) by Thomas Bernhard, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott, made me laugh out loud in the dark as I sat propped up in bed, my reading light clipped to the back cover, while everyone els

The film Three Seasons, a collage of small stories from modern Saigon, aroused contradictory feelings in me. The opening sequence was ravishing: at dawn in a blossom-covered lake surrounding a disused temple from some much earlier incarnation of Viet

Alana Mairs reviews Tigers Eyes by Judy Blume (Bradbury Press).

Michael Hayward reviews Trauma Farm by Brian Brett (Greystone).

Kelsea O'Connor reviews Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, a lighthearted look at the embarrassing moments in the author's life.

Hal Niedzviecki says White Lung by Grant Buday is the comic novel that should have been given to delegates at the WTO in Seattle.

"A door has closed, another door has opened. You have entered the winter of your life." A review of Paul Auster's memoir.

My New York Diary (Drawn & Quarterly) by Julie Doucet. Like all great graphic novels, this book manages to condense a complex set of circumstances into a simple tale: Montrealer Doucet moves to New York to join her boyfriend, who turns out to be para

Patty Osborne reviews Never Going Back by Antonia Banyard (Thistledown).

Becky McEachern reviews Nikolski by Nicolas Dicker (Vintage).

Because I am a fairly new fan of Martin Amis's novels, I picked up slim Night Train (Knopf Canada) with much interest. Amis is well known for novelistic experimentation (his Time's Arrow is written in reverse time), and he doesn't disappoint here.

Dylan Gyles reviews They Never Told Me and Other Stories by Austin Clarke.

Daniel Francis explores the photographer as Vancouver's most interesting historian.

Steven Heighton's new book, On Earth As It Is, is bigger and much more spread out than his last one (Flight Paths of the Emperor) and more ambitious. His writing is strongest when he writes at a distance; especially fine are his excursions into the p

Patty Osborne reviews One Bloody Thing After Another by Joey Comeau (ECW Press).

Lily Gontard reviews Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.

Jenny Kent reviews Palpasa Café by Narayan Wagle (Publication Nepa~laya).

While doing research for a proposed TV series on heinous Victorian criminals, the hero of Paranoia in the Launderette, by Bruce Robinson (Bloomsbury), becomes convinced that there are murderers around every corner, hiding under his bed, poisoning his

A review of Julie Otsuka's novel, The Buddha in the Attic, about Japanese picture brides in the 1920s.

In The Lynching of Louie Sam, two teenage boys watched as another—an Aboriginal named Louie Sam—was hanged by a group of men who rode on horseback. Reviewed by Patty Osborne.

"I hope you will agree that we more sensitive teenagers grew up surrounded by irony." Jill Mandrake calls George Bowering's memoir his most provocative work yet.

Belated discovery of the season: John Buell, whose novel Playground was originally published in 1976 and more recently by HarperCollins in a paperback edition bearing the single quote: "Canada's most brilliant suspense novelist.–New York Times." But

Michael Hayward reviews What Poets Are Like by Gary Soto.

William Wallace Cook offers a literary guide to creating a unique plot.

Laurence Gough has another police procedural out from McClelland & Stewart: Fall Down Easy is a fast read and fun, but not much different from the American prototype.

Linda Svendsen eviscerates the hypocritical nature of Canadian politics in Sussex Drive.

Kris Rothstein reviews Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf (Lyons Press).

Lily Gontard reviews One Day (Hodder & Staughton), David Nicholls's novel about a decades-long friendship.

Mandelbrot reviews Maps of Paradise by Alessandro Scafi, a history of humanity's attempts to locate utopia.

Two recent books nicely illustrate, for me, the disturbing state of contemporary publishing. The first book, Hemingway: The Toronto Years (Doubleday) by William Burrill, a Toronto journalist, is a handsome example of the book-making art.... The secon

Mandelbrot reviews Jeff Wall: The Complete Edition (Phaidon).