Literary

Not quite a graphic novel, Vivek Shraya’s debut collection of short stories is as visually rich as it is textual. God Loves Hair is a contemporary Bildungsroman anthology of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality, religion and, well, his hair. Inspired by American author Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, Shraya couldn’t find […]

We’ve been talking about end times for so long—probably since the beginning of time—it’s lost its point. PEI native and Toronto-based poet Steve McOrmond’s titular work re-sharpens it. Across 38 pages, with curt and cutting writing, he reminds us the end of things, time, people, relationships, plans for a day or a life, the world, […]

In this compelling look at 2008’s world financial meltdown, The Blind Side author focuses on a few money managers who won big when Wall Street bet wrong. Along with a tale of oddballs battling the system, you get an easy-to-swallow education. “The subprime mortgage market had a special talent for obscuring,” Lewis writes. “Alt-A was […]

“You see the cardinal at the feeder, and now you’re going to know that the red colour in the feathers have carotenoids in them and that’s signalling the male’s health,” says Bridget Stutchbury, an internationally renowned ornithologist, of the kind of knowledge she hopes readers gain from her new book, The Bird Detective. The male […]

Before blogs there were zines. The two co-exist today. Blogs seem highly specific, newsy, opinionated. Zines reflect opinions, passions and zinesters build arguments, though they come across as less argumentative—more reflective, evocative of a longer-term universal condition. They’re generalists and necessary ones at that. Jeff Miller is a great example. In 1996, at 16 and […]

S. Bear Bergman is a natural storyteller. As a trans-Jewish writer, Bergman is navigating uncharted literary terrain, writing “hirself” (the pronoun used in the book) into the ever-expanding landscape of contemporary queer Canadian literature. Bergman writes about hir personal experience in day-to-day life in first person without the guise of fiction. With heartbreaking honesty, ferocious […]

Mendleman, a young rug weaver waiting for his first child’s arrival, has his life thrown in disarray when he finds out the salesman he relied on has closed up shop and he can no longer get a decent price for his rugs. The story unfolds from the daybreak of one day until the next, slowly […]

Sadly, Russell Smith’s male protagonists have not learned anything in the 18 years since his debut How Insensitive: Justin is another white, middle-class, artistically unsatisfied Toronto wimp, whining about his dead-end life as a college teacher. And he too thinks with his love stick, another play-it-safe dude in pursuit of another so-called “dangerous” woman with […]

Two ringed coffee stains collide on the book’s front cover. The contact causes an explosion, a darker drop with squibs. On a stark white background, these rust-hued circles express the thrust of McCartney’s work: opposing emotional spheres may well overlap to form a new state of mind and of the heart. The duality of push […]

Meiko is adrift in Tokyo. She hates her job, her boyfriend is freeloading at her apartment and all her friends are as directionless as she is. When she impulsively quits her job, she’s forced to figure out exactly what she wants in life. Solanin is a deceptively simple manga about 20somethings at a crossroads. While […]

Japanese comic master Tatsumi’s works previously published by D&Q (The Push Man and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo) are simple, straightforward depictions of the lives of ordinary Japanese citizens in the mid-twentieth century. Black Blizzard was Tatsumi’s breakthrough work, published in 1956 when he was 21, here translated into English for the first […]

Drew Hayden Taylor excels at tension, building it from the moment a stranger named John arrives on a vintage Indian Chief bike. He rolls into the Anishnawbe community of Otter Lake to keep a longheld promise to a now-dying elder. Taylor playfully creates his anti-hero, who’s young, old, wise and wild all at once. He […]