A Review of The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt
Sunday, Nov 06, 2011 at 12:51pm
Hired killers Eli and Charlie Sisters set out from Oregon City in 1851 for Sacramento, California and the gold fields to complete a contract for their boss. In a fog of alcohol and the stress of coping with a beloved but bumbling horse, Eli and Charlie stagger on, executing anyone who gets in their way. As they win and lose a fortune in gold on more than one occasion, the brothers re-examine their relationship and their purpose in life.
The Sisters Brothers is a gory, brutal yet somehow funny re-telling of the classic western and has just won the 2011 Governor General's Award for Fiction as well as the 2011 Rogers Writer's Trust Award for Fiction. It is being talked about by many booksellers around here and will appeal to readers of any age and of many literary tastes.
Categories: ReviewsVicki Delany -- Night Table Recommendations
Wednesday, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:58pm
A crime writer I am also a crime reader and probably about 80% of my reading is crime novels. I also like to read books set in Canada whenever possible, and sometimes that makes for a difficult search. Canadian crime writers still have the impression that they have to set their books in the U.S. and pretend to be Americans. There are noticeable exceptions, but despite the success of many Canadian - set mystery books on the world stage, setting a crime book in Canada, with Canadian characters and Canadian issues, is seen as taking a risk.
Fortunately there are a number of excellent Canadian writers prepared to take that risk. One of my favourites of the last couple of years is The Weight of Stones (Dundurn Press) by Ottawa's C.B. Forrest. Weight of Stones is a crime novel in that that protagonist is a Toronto police officer and he is on the trail of some 'bad guys' but (like the very best crime novels) it is so much more. The main character, Charlie McKelvey, is consumed by grief and guilt. Grief over the death of his son, and guilt in what he sees as his part in the death because he threw the troubled young man out of the house. Forrest's portrait of McKelvey's anguish, which has destroyed his marriage and is well on the way to destroying his career, is so heart-rending I was surprised when I met Forrest to find, not a drunk ex-cop with a grudge against the world, but a happy young man in a happy marriage. Excellent writing does that.
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Categories: Reviews, Authors, Mystery & Crime, Night Table RecommendationsBook of the Day Guy Vanderhaeghe's A Good Man
Tuesday, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:56am
A distinctive Saskatchewan voice in Canada and around the world, Saskatoon's 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, 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.
Categories: ReviewsSally Ito -- Night Table Recommendations
Wednesday, Sep 21, 2011 at 9:54am
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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Categories: Reviews, Discussions, Authors, Night Table RecommendationsBook of the Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories
Tuesday, Sep 20, 2011 at 10:35am
In his new book, Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories, 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.
will be joining us in our Grant Park store Saturday, September 24, 11:00 am, for a reading and signing.
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