Like last year, the 2025 International Booker Prize longlist is out of left field. Former winners, who I thought were a lock, were shut out (Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk, László Krasznahorkai) and some of these translations were published in North America before the UK, which is unusual. But the most surprising thing about this longlist ..read more

There’s a TikTok trend (which will probably be over by the time you read this) which is meant to look like a first-person horror video game with captions like “POV: YOU WAKE UP DURING THE BLACK PLAGUE (1351)” and “POV you wake up as a worker in Titanic in 1912”. There are milder and sillier ..read more

Unlike my worst books of the year, I don’t see coherent themes in this list, nor is there a clear standout. None of these are perfect; they all annoyed me, just a little, in some way. In whittling the list down to ten, I tried to keep only the books where the annoyance is more ..read more

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, even though I only make this kind of post every couple of years. In 2016, I was annoyed by The Glass Castle and The Dead Ladies Project. In 2018, I was exasperated by Sick and American War. In 2022, I was bored by The Autobiography of Alice ..read more

I don’t love the mountains, which is a controversial thing to say here in Alberta. Everyone goes to the mountains, and feels at peace, at home, in awe, or whatever. Many “leave their heart” there. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Vancouver, where it was normal to see mountains (and an ocean) but I ..read more

This is a book blog, not a personal blog, but I do write about life events here, and sometimes things don’t feel real until I do. The births of my children are here. Moving into our house, briefly. My sister moving to the States. Then the fire happened, and I wrote about what it’s like ..read more

I write this from a place of uncertainty, anxiety, and hope: the brief but interminable span of time between games six and seven of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.  The fact that there will be a game seven at all is a minor miracle. If the Oilers win game seven, it will be a historic, statistically improbable, and miraculous comeback by a team that was at the bottom of the league earlier this season and was down 0-3 in this series. Edmonton hasn’t won the cup in 34 years. A Canadian team hasn’t won a cup in 30 years. It’s been nine years since the Oilers drafted Connor McDavid and began the ..read more

Are “short essay collections” a thing? Flash essays? Micro essays? I don’t know that I’ve ever read a collection like this before: 25 essays in 144 pages for an average of under 6 pages each. A couple of them come off as a little underdone, but most of them feel full: of odd characters, familiar places, and moments of catharsis and recognition. And humour! I laughed out loud at a joke about Balzac, Alberta, which does indeed sound like “ballsack” – as my kids will note every time we pass it on the way to Calgary. Speaking of Alberta, I thought Big Mall would be the most locally and personally ..read more

20 Books of Summer has always been more about the motivation to *actually review* books for me, not reducing my TBR, and never more so than this year. I don’t own 20 books, let alone 20 books I haven’t read before. Hence the shorter list. This year is special though, as it’s the tenth anniversary of an event that started as a TBR challenge with 8 participants that now attracts upwards of 100 bloggers each year. No mean feat given the state of blogging today and the fact that this is a rather high-commitment event (with very relaxed rules to make it manageable.) Congratulations to Cathy for ke ..read more

I’ve lived within a 15-minute drive of West Edmonton Mall for more than thirty years. With 800+ stores as a backdrop, I grew from a teenage mallrat to a mom doing the back-to-school shopping. I had my first kiss in a photo booth near the mini golf course, and shopped for a wedding dress in the wedding district (upstairs, Phase I) 15 years later. In 2002, I watched Canada win gold* on a TV in Vision Electronics while on a break from my job in Galaxyland (formerly Fantasyland, long story) and in peak 2022 fashion, I got stuck inside a drugstore during a lockdown drill while waiting for a COVID ..read more