Halifax, Nova Scotia | THE COAST: Book Reviews

Sweet Tooth Vol. 1: Out of the Woods

editor@thecoast.ca (Shannon Fay) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Jeff Lemire (Vertigo) by Shannon Fay Gus is a young boy with deer ears and antlers. He�s a hybrid�a child born with animal features after a great plague killed most of humanity.…

Swimming Ginger

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Gary Geddes (Goose Lane) by Sean Flinn In this suite of narrative poems published by Goose Lane, award-winning British Columbia poet Gary Geddes adds a dimension (of voice) to the Qingming Shanghe Tu scroll, an expansive and highly detailed 12th-century painting thought to be produced by Zhang Zeduan of Bianliang. The painting reproduced over several middle pages in the (8� x 5.5�) book.…

Iain Reid

editor@thecoast.ca (Sue Carter Flinn) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0300

One Bird�s Choice (Anansi) by Sue Carter Flinn The subtitle of Reid�s book sums up his timely story better than any review: �A Year in the Life of an Overeducated, Underemployed Twenty-Something Who Moves Back Home.� Reid takes a part-time summer gig at CBC Radio, but the only way he can afford to do it is to move back home to his parents� hobby farm, where puttering and meal planning takes up a good part of the day. His parents--- in particular, Reid�s father and his favourite corduroy pants---are charming and familiar, which makes this memoir fun to read.…

Children of the Atom

editor@thecoast.ca (Laura Kenins) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Dave Lapp (Conundrum) by Laura Kenins Toronto comic artist Dave Lapp won acclaim for his first book, Drop-in; Children of the Atom collects his strips from the Vancouver weekly Georgia Straight, telling the stories of his two characters Franklin-Boy and Jim-Jam Girl. The two speak in riddles, playing and dancing a line between childhood and adulthood at varying times.…

Eating Animals

editor@thecoast.ca (Jon Dempsey) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Jonathan Safran Foer (Little, Brown and Company) by Jon Dempsey After penning two acclaimed novels, author Jonathan Safran Foer writes his first non-fiction account, Eating Animals on, well, not eating animals. After learning of his wife�s pregnancy, Foer, faced with health and moral implications of feeding his then-unborn son, began more than a year�s worth of research into factory farming and vegetarianism.…

Hooked on Canadian Books

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0300

T.F. Rigelhof (Cormorant) by Sean Flinn A journalist, teacher and writer, T.F. Rigelhof plumbs his undeniably deep knowledge of the CanLit canon to come up with his selections of �the Good, the Better and the Best Canadian Novels Since 1984,� as goes this book�s subtitle. (He covers 25 years of the Canadian novel, up to 2009.)…

The Authenticity Hoax

editor@thecoast.ca (Hilary Beaumont) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Andrew Potter (McClelland & Stewart) by Hilary Beaumont From Potter, co-author of The Rebel Sell, comes an attempt to explain our modern existential search for meaning in a hollow world. As I read Potter�s summaries of Hume and Thales I pictured my first-year philosophy prof---mad eyebrows dancing a jig on his forehead, who knows what in his Thermos---skimming the history of philosophy in two classes per week over eight months.…

How Did You Get This Number

editor@thecoast.ca (Laura Kenins) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Sloane Crosley (Riverhead) by Laura Kenins Coming off a bit like the younger, slightly rebellious, and actually funny, sister of Carrie from Sex and the City, Crosley�s collection of humorous essays centre around being young in general, and being young in New York. The New York humour is a bit alien: I don�t really get jokes about taxi service, or bargain apartments that cost $900 a month for a room in a five-bedroom.…

Scott Pilgrim�s Finest Hour

editor@thecoast.ca (Sue Carter Flinn) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Bryan Lee O�Malley (Oni Press) by Sue Carter Flinn It doesn�t matter how many kerplows, superpowers or evil villains you stuff into a graphic novel---if it doesn�t have a sense of humanity and a strong heart, who cares? Former Haligonian O�Malley�s series, which is going to balloon to phenomenon status with the launch of the film on August 13, may contain the requisite hipster references, manga-styled characters and video game references, but ultimately this is a real-life story about relationships and all the shitty insecurities that come with them.…

Ruts & Gullies: Nine Days in St. Petersburg

editor@thecoast.ca (Laura Kenins) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Philippe Girard (Conundrum) by Laura Kenins Quebec artist Philippe Girard chronicles his first visit to Russia, for the St. Petersburg comic festival Boomfest, in this comic travelogue. Girard checks out Russian cuisine, living arrangements in formerly communal apartments, vodka, the Cyrillic alphabet and St. Petersburg�s elegant subway.…

The Selves

editor@thecoast.ca (Sue Carter Flinn) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Sonja Ahlers (D+Q) by Sue Carter Flinn Poet, author and artist Sonja Ahlers� book of collage and poetry will appeal to those who have a stack of Busts beside their futons and Jezebel.com high on their bookmarks. Using an incredible array of found images, mostly of iconic female celebrities and figures like Holly Hobby, Jeri Blank (Amy Sedaris) and the girls from the original, groundbreaking Degrassi (perhaps the first Stephanie Kaye poem on record), Ahlers manages to say a lot about the complexities of female representations in popular culture with very little context or words on a page.…

Fauna

editor@thecoast.ca (Robyn McNeil) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Alissa York (Random House) by Robyn McNeil Toronto�s Don River Valley figures prominently in Fauna, the highly anticipated new novel from Alissa York. A sanctuary for misfits of both animal and humankind the Don wilderness is home to an auto wrecker's yard that doubles as a rehabilitation centre for broken spirits and broken wings.…

Got No Secrets

editor@thecoast.ca (Shannon Webb-Campbell) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Danila Botha (Tightrope) by Shannon Webb-Campbell Danila Botha�s debut collection of short stories makes the personal political. With clear diction, Botha�s prose packs a punch.…

This Cake is for the Party

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Sarah Selecky (Thomas Allen) by Sean Flinn Embedded in each of these stories, though not bluntly stated or clumsily constructed, is an everyday moral dilemma to be considered. In the opening story, �Throwing Cotton,� questions on the role of rivalry in friendship (is there any such thing as friendly rivalry?), especially among men, arise.…

Saturn Apartments, Volume 1

editor@thecoast.ca (Shannon Fay) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Hisae Iwaoka (VIZ Media) by Shannon Fay Saturn Apartments is a strange mix of hard sci-fi, childlike art and sentimentality. Mitsu is a window washer on a space station orbiting an abandoned earth.…

Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Paul Quarrington (GreyStone) by Sean Flinn Paul Quarrington passed away in January of this year. He�d already been working on a book about his life in music when he was diagnosed with advanced, terminal lung cancer.…

Ways of Staying

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Kevin Bloom (Portobello/Anansi) by Sean Flinn Johannesburg journalist Kevin Bloom illustrates a post-apartheid South Africa united in fear. White and black people both perpetrate and suffer violence and psychological injury.…

The Warhol Gang

editor@thecoast.ca (Sean Flinn) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Peter Darbyshire (HarperCollins) by Sean Flinn This allegory opens with a worker for a �neuromarketing� company. He works under the codename Trotsky.…

The Ask

editor@thecoast.ca (Sue Carter Flinn) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:00:00 -0300

Sam Lipsyte (FSG) by Sue Carter Flinn Ever wonder what happened to Ethan Hawke�s smug slacker from Reality Bites? He probably shares cubicle space with Lipsyte�s Milo Burke, a failed painter and porn-lover now working as a development officer for Mediocre University, half-assedly siphoning money out of New York�s wealthy.…