Rob Sherren

The word Balkan may bring to mind a number of associations. Complex borders, fraternity, religion, betrayal, atrocity. It gets complicated very quickly. Josip Novakovich’s most recent collection of short stories, Ex-Yu, explores each of these topics in turn and in conjunction

ublished in French as Pourquoi Bologne, Alain Farah’s book, impeccably translated by Lazer Lederhendler, reconstructs a mental breakdown in short disconnected chapters that shift topic and time period, occasionally descending into hallucinatory paranoiac episodes.

When author and activist June Callwood was asked to provide some words of wisdom for aspiring writers, she responded, “Read, read, read. Forgive your parents.” Blind Spot, by Laurence Miall, is the story of a man who cannot follow the last part of that advice.

The Obese Christ by Larry Tremblay is a disconcerting book – and that's exactly what it intends to be.

Young Canadians travelling abroad have a reputation for being pleasant, earnest, and occasionally prickly. Daniel Baylis is just such a Canadian, searching for social engagement, and meaning at a point in his late twenties when, for some people, working life can begin to look like a protracted actuarial exercise. The Traveller is the true story of the year Baylis spent volunteer-circumnavigating the world. Twelve months. Twelve countries. Twelve volunteer stints. Or that was the plan anyway.

Poetic language that is dense and rich can be like fruitcake: a fingerling or two is nice with tea, but the going gets rough after the fifth or sixth slice. The Traymore Rooms, a first novel by Montreal poet Norm Sibum, is almost 700 pages. That's a lot of fruitcake.

The book’s crystalline prose makes for an incredibly smooth read but the most impressive technical accomplishment is the timeline.

When you sit down to talk books with Daniel Allen Cox, you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen, all you can be sure of is that it’s going to be interesting.

Imagine a murder during the 1955 Maurice Richard Riot in Montreal. It happens right in front of the Sun Life Building, and the murder weapon is a legendary Quebec artefact. One pictures a smile on the author’s face as he feels the tension and potential of the set-up.

When you pick up a book whose cover motif is interlocking coffins and find that it is set in Croatia, you can bet there’ll be more than three deaths inside. True to the title, though, the three stories are about the poisoning of a golden and cherished child, a father’s blood-frothing deathbed address, and a mother who spent a decade dying.