There’s a lot going on in Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves, but at its heart the novel explores culpability and guilt. The first page of the novel explains that our protagonist, Linda, held and hugged a boy, Paul, who died. What follows is how Paul died, and more significantly, why he died (as his death, we learn, was far from inevitable). Continue reading
Category Archives: Book Club
History of Wolves: Booker Prize shortlist meet Minnesota winter; or, what to read on your holiday break
Filed under American literature, Book Club, Booker Prize, Fiction, Prize Winner
Birdie: Why my book club friends are always wrong.
There are books you read because you want to, books you read because they’re recommended, books you read because you’re required, books you read out of curiosity and books you read because you should. For me, Tracy Lindberg’s Birdie is a novel I was required to read for book club and a book I thought I should read because Lindberg brings voice in fiction to the narrative of murdered and missing indigenous women. While I’m glad I read it, I didn’t enjoy the novel, or think it was particularly well written. Continue reading
Filed under Book Club, Book I'll Forget I Read, Canadian Literature, Fiction
Of Mice and Men: Meh; Or, How to Rate a Classic
Okay, okay, I’m not doing well at vacationing. Whatever. More guest posts to come and I’m not reading anything but magazines right now (!), so this is really and truly the last post from me for a few weeks. Plus Of Mice and Men is a novella and takes a couple of hours to read, so there. Continue reading
Filed under American literature, Book Club, Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction
A Pale View of the Hills: What a weird little novel
This is one weird little novel. I read it for book club and I’m so glad because hopefully one of my friends can explain what in the what. Continue reading
Filed under Book Club, Fiction, Prize Winner
Literary Vice 