Gina Roitman

Cora Siré’s collection of memoir, stories, and essays reveals lives complicated by war, displacement, and immigration.

David Homel’s admirable and absorbing memoir charts the map of his life’s journey.

In Wrestling with Life, his stirring memoir written with Richard King, George Reinitz looks back on a life coloured by both tragedy and triumph. His story reveals the horrors of Auschwitz, the loss of family, struggles in a new country, and achievements won through hard work, determination, and an open heart.

The key to understanding the French, according to Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau, authors of The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed, is to consider the gulf between communication and conversation. According to the Canadian duo, the French do not communicate; they converse. And when they do so, they may deliberately provoke controversy, they may avoid admitting they don’t know something, and they may even say no when they mean yes

Music must float in the air over Montreal, a city that has nurtured many a lauded performer from the late classical pianist Ellen Ballon to Arcade Fire and Nikki Yanofsky. So it is only natural that music has been the central focus of a number of books by local authors, including most recently Mary Soderstrom’s River Music.

Where do we draw the line between storytelling and lies? Can a good story veil (or protect) reality while revealing a larger truth? And what is the responsibility of the storyteller to his audience? In his second novel, The Goat in the Tree, Lorne Elliott – comedian, award-winning playwright, musician, and Hudson resident – playfully poses these questions, wrapping them in a tale about a storyteller whose talent for fabrication is his ticket to ride. To sweeten the plot, Elliott adds parables and fables as guideposts to the characters we meet along the way.

The Danish-Canadian writer’s hefty new novel, The Lost Sisterhood, skilfully weaves a mesmerizing tale of two women – one modern and one mythological (or maybe not) – replete with intrigue, twists, and turnarounds.

Norman Nawrocki’s first novel, CAZZAROLA! Anarchy, Romani, Love, Italy is a wild and bumpy ride through 130 years of Italian history as it follows four generations of Discordias, a fictional family of Italian anarchists. They have many stories to tell, and these unfold in a non-linear fashion, often squeezed through the lens of political struggles.

Bette Davis said, “Getting old is not for sissies.” That much is evident as we meet the often hilarious characters who roam the halls of Arleen Rotchin’s second novel, The Duchess of Cypress.

In his fifth novel, Turkish-Canadian writer Agop J. Hacikyan constructs a loving portrait of life in Istanbul during the mid-twentieth century that sadly misses the mark as often as it hits it. Written in the third person, yet with a distinct journal-like quality, The Lamppost Diary is a rambling episodic tale.