I read each of these books in a day (that’s two days for the both of them, if math’s not your strong point). I think I may have mentioned before that I have a weakness for memoirs about addiction and recovery, but this father-and-son set of books were, in their way, even more compelling [...]
A.J. Jacob’s The Year of Living Biblically is one of the books I was “saving” for Lent, knowing that I’d enjoy it. In case you haven’t heard of it (and you probably have, because it’s getting a lot of hype), it’s Jacobs’ story of the year he spent trying to follow every [...]
When was the last time you read a business book that ends with the author’s business going bankrupt and being sold off to the highest bidder? When was the last time you read a book about Christian ministry that ends with the ministry collapsing in disarray and being sold to a non-Christian company? In other [...]
One of the items on my “Old Favourites” re-read list was this lovely little memoir about a woman theology student doing her clinical pastoral training on a hospital ward for children with life-threatening neurological injuries. Nina Herrmann’s stories about working with dying kids are perceptive, painful and often beautiful, and her honesty and self-deprecating humour [...]
Both this book and the last one (Nervous System) were books that other people loaned me, saying “I think you might like this.” It’s always interesting to see what other people think you might like. Kind of a glimpse into how they perceive your interests. This one was loaned me by my boss, and it’s [...]
When Canadian writer Jan Lars Jensen had his first novel accepted by a publisher, things seemed to be going well. But Jensen’s life quickly started to unravel. He had had no previous diagnosis of mental illness (though there was a history of mental illness in his family, but then, whose family doesn’t have some history [...]
Janice Wells writes a column (same title as the book) in my local paper, which I occasionally read and usually enjoy. When I saw that this book — a collection of her columns — was for sale, I picked it up on impulse to add to my mom’s Mother’s Day gift bag, thinking it [...]
When I’ve already reviewed a book, I don’t usually review its sequel as well. In this case I am doing that, because although I enjoyed Paris to the Moon, I really loved Through the Children’s Gate, the follow-up memoir about the Gopnik family’s return to New York with two young children after five years in [...]
This is the story of Nelofer Pazira and her family — their lives in Afghanistan, their escape to Pakistan and eventually to Canada as immigrants, and Pazira’s return many years later as part of a feature film crew. Most of the story is set during Pazira’s childhood and teenage years in Afghanistan — the years [...]
There just aren’t words for how much I love Anne Lamott.
The other day I heard Shelagh Rogers on Sounds Like Canada interviewing Heather Mallick about her new book Cake or Death (which you’ll probably see me reviewing here, eventually). They got talking about writers they like, and one of them mentioned Anne Lamott.
“Oh I love [...]
