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A Good Man$32.99 add to cart

A distinctive Saskatchewan voice in Canada and around the world, Saskatoon's Guy Vanderhaeghe broke onto the Canadian literary scene in 1982, winning a Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction for his first book, a collection of short stories entitled Man Descending. His success, international in scope, is particularly noteworthy because he achieved it while remaining in Saskatchewan and writing stories mainly set in Saskatchewan. The key to his success? He tells a good tale. He went on to win another Governor General's Award for his novel The Englishman's Boy (1996), and his most recent novel The Last Crossing (2002) was the 2004 Canada Reads winner.

His new novel A Good Man concludes what could be thought of as a trilogy (after The Englishman's Boy and The Last Crossing) set in the late nineteenth-century Canadian and American West. Weaving a rich tapestry of history with the personal fortunes of his characters, Vanderhaeghe's A Good Man is the gripping tale of women and men trying to find their places among the shifting forces as a new social order overtakes one of the world's last great frontiers and marks the end of the Wild West.

Giving a book is like giving an obligation. - Gabriel Zaid in So Many Books.

My life is one long night of unfinished books. - A character in one my unfinished short stories.

I had a bit of a laugh when I received the request for Night Table recommendations from McNally Robinson's because I have a bad habit of starting a lot of books (usually at night) and never finishing them. So of course I'd never deign to actually recommend any book to put on one's night table for one to actually finish, keeping also Zaid's comment in mind! In other words, the little list I'm putting forth here is simply what I'm reading now and if you should happen to be interested in the books, all the better!

Since I'm a writer of different genres, a translator, and a teacher, I've usually got books on hand to meet those various needs of my writing life as they arise.

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Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories$32.00 add to cart

In his new book, Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories, Bachman shares his favourite stories. A legendary figure in the rock and roll world through his talents as a guitarist, songwriter, producer and performer with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, he has earned more than 120 gold and platinum album/singles awards around the world. Even with all his success he is still that kid from Winnipeg, and his enthusiasm for great music is as strong as ever. Encounters with celebrities and rock legends abound in Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories, but it is the music that is the driving force behind his extraordinary career, and what brings us back for more stories from Randy's Vinyl Tap.

Randy will be joining us in our Grant Park store Saturday, September 24, 11:00 am, for a reading and signing.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby (Penguin, 2009)

Let's start off with the obvious. I'm publishing a comic novel this fall (Dadolescence, Turnstone Press) about a pop-culture-obsessed middle-aged man who desperately needs to grow up and find a purpose. How could I not be a Nick Hornby fan? In his latest novel, he focuses on Annie, the wife of Duncan, a typically Hornbyesque music obsessive who treats an obscure 1980s rock album called Juliet with religious devotion. Like the rest of Hornby's books, it's funny, sad, hopeful, and honest.

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