Book Review – Page 4 – CAROUSEL Magazine: Blog

USEREVIEW 085 (Capsule): Machine Dreams

Liam Burke X Natalie HannaMachine Dreams (Collusion Books, 2021)ISBN 978-1-77722-448-6 | 48 pp | $16 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Liam Burke and Natalie Hanna’s circuit-bent verse gives voice to the forces of commerce, war, industry and scientific research that we so easily relegate to background noise, footnotes to the history of progress. ‘Adventures in total artifice’ races one of the world’s first artificial hearts against the all-too-human ticker and its secrets, and ‘primal road

USEREVIEW 084: Ghost Lake Survival Guide

In this thrilling and chilling experimental review, Emily Woodworth takes us on a knowing tour of the local lore, flora and fauna of Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler‘s Ghost Lake (Kegedonce Press, 2020). ISBN 978-1-92812-024-7 | 307 pp | $19.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY A Ghost Lake Guide to Survival by Ghost Lake Citizens for Tourism So, you want to visit Ghost Lake. You’ve made an excellent choice! An exhilarating, backcountry paradise awaits, complete with

USEREVIEW 083: Kenningdom

In this lush and ambitious traditional review, Elizabeth Upshur coins stunning neologisms in order to craft a review that matches the linguistic elasticity of Nicola Vulpe’s latest poetry collection Through the Waspmouth I Drew You (Guernica Editions, 2021). ISBN 978-1-77183-591-6 | 80 pp | $20 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Spending time with a book of poems is the smallest of demands, and yet it offers the greatest of rewards if we can connect with

USEREVIEW 082 (Capsule): Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer

Rax KingTacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer (Vintage Books, 2021)ISBN 978-0-59331-272-8 | 208 pp | $21.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Rax King is good at two things: she makes me care about the things I’ve unjustly overlooked, and she validates my brilliant little mind for caring about the things that I do. In Tacky, her debut collection of personal essays from Vintage Books, King pays homage to lowbrow culture.

USEREVIEW 081 (Capsule): undergrad: a commonplace book

Laila El Mugammarundergrad: a commonplace book (2021)ISBN 978-1-77779-150-6 | 108 pp | $19.99 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Undergrad: a commonplace book is Laila El Mugammar’s self-published debut collection. It serves as a literary scrapbook from El Mugammar’s time as an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph. Featuring academic essays, personal essays, speeches and fiction, undergrad examines and illuminates anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, queerness, disordered eating and much more within the context of university campuses and

USEREVIEW 080 (Capsule): Dreaming of You

Melissa Lozada-OlivaDreaming of You (Astra House Books, 2021)ISBN 978-1-66260-059-3 | 192 pp | $30.00 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY To call a book ‘haunting’ is a cliché. Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s debut novel, Dreaming of You (Astra House Books, 2021) is haunted — an important distinction. This novel-in-verse is so haunted, in fact, that it holds a séance to resurrect Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla. It’s so haunted that it’s narrated by a gossiping Greek chorus. It’s

USEREVIEW 079: Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Like a seance, this traditional review by Deirdre Danklin will reveal the spirits that animate Andrea King’s debut novel Spectral Living (University of Calgary Press, 2021). ISBN 978-1-77385-147-1 | 192 pp | $27.99 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Do you believe in ghosts? This question comes up at every gathering of writers I’ve ever hosted. Above a cheeseboard, putting jam on scones, the question pops out. Most of my friends believe — they swear upon

USEREVIEW 078 (Capsule): Approaching Fire

Michelle PorterApproaching Fire (Breakwater Books, 2020)ISBN 978-1-55081-853-6 | 192 pp | $19.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Michelle Porter’s 2020 memoir, Approaching Fire, approaches its subject with depth, sensitivity and purpose. Following Porter’s journey to find out more about her great-grandfather, the Métis fiddler Léon Robert Goulet, the book deftly blends research, reporting, personal narrative, family history, poetry and found media. Print ephemera anchor the factual discoveries Porter makes about her great-grandfather’s life, while bearing

USEREVIEW 077 (Capsule): Be Scared of Everything: Horror Essays

Peter CounterBe Scared of Everything: Horror Essays (Invisible Publishing, 2020)ISBN 978-1-98878-456-4 | 200 pp | $20.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY In his 2020 debut essay collection, Be Scared of Everything: Horror Essays, Peter Counter turns sharp, thoughtful attention to one of literature and film’s most critically under-appreciated genres: horror. The collection, published by Invisible Publishing, is based on Counter’s horror blog, Everything is Scary, and the essays in the book retain a breezy pace

USEREVIEW 076 (Capsule): alfabet / alphabet

Sadiqa de Meijeralfabet / alphabet (Palimpsest Press, 2020)ISBN 978-1-92679-460-6 | 100 pp | $15.95 CAD / $14.95 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Surely there is no one to better explore the limits, beauty and vagaries of language than a poet, someone who has dedicated their life to engaging in a deep relationship with words. Sadiqa de Meijer, who has previously published two poetry collections, turns her attention to memoir in Alfabet / Alphabet. Subtitled ‘a

USEREVIEW 075: Psychic Chafing

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, might it also be the most effective mode of review? Taking her cue from the very book she is assessing, Meredith Sadler employs the comics form to respond to the ‘Youth’ section of Tove Ditlevsen’s graphic memoir The Copenhagen Trilogy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). ISBN 978-0-37460-239-0 | 384 pp | $37.95 CAD / $30 USD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY

USEREVIEW 074 (Capsule): Leonard Cohen: On a Wire

Philippe Girard (Writer and Illustrator), Helge Dascher and Karen Houle (Translators)Leonard Cohen: On a Wire (Drawn & Quarterly, 2021)ISBN 978-1-77046-489-6 | 120 pp | $29.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY This graphic biography of the famous poet and musician from Montreal is told in a series of flashbacks as Cohen lies dying. To condense a life as rich and varied as Cohen’s in a mere 119 pages is no easy task but Girard’s flashback format

USEREVIEW 073 (Capsule): The Good Fight

Ted Staunton (Writer), Josh Rosen (Illustrator)The Good Fight (Scholastic Canada, 2021)ISBN 978-1-44316-383-5 | 224 pp | $16.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY I’m glad this book exists. Staunton and Rosen do a good job of shedding light on a shameful chapter of Toronto’s history, when pro-Hitler fascists openly roamed the city’s streets. In 1933, hundreds of members of The Balmy Beach Swastika Club painted Nazi symbols on their clothing, carried placards with anti-Semitic slogans, flashed

USEREVIEW 072 (Capsule): Weeding

Genevieve LeBleuWeeding (Conundrum Press, 2021)ISBN 978-1-77262-048-1 | 102 pp | $18.00 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Weeding is a fantastic and deeply weird graphic novel. LeBleu’s artwork is reminiscent of Strange Growths by Jenny Zervakis and Safari Honeymoon by Jesse Jacobs. There’s a touch of Rory Hayes in there, too. Martha is hosting a tea party inside her house. Outside, Martha’s garden is overrun with weeds with eyes and tendril-like vines and a Venus flytrap-style

USEREVIEW 071: Looking for Lost Keys

Kate Finegan throws open the doors and windows to inspect the architecture of Amy LeBlanc’s debut novella Unlocking (University of Calgary Press, 2021) in this traditional review. ISBN 978-1-77385-139-6 | 112 pp | $19.99 CAD/USD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY In a 2020 interview with David Ly for PRISM International, author and poet Amy LeBlanc discusses the impact of fairy tales on her work: “When I read the Grimm’s fairy tales for the first time and

USEREVIEW 070: By Definition

Renée M. Sgroi assesses the ability of the text to live up to to its own self-definition in this traditional review of Poetry & the Dictionary, an essay collection edited by Andrew Blades and Piers Pennington (Liverpool University Press, 2020). ISBN 978-1-78962-056-6 | 312 pp, hardcover | $132 CAD (£90) — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Poetry & the Dictionary is a collection of academic essays that examines poetic engagements with dictionaries, particularly the Oxford English Dictionary.

USEREVIEW 069 (Capsule): Dominant Genes

SJ SinduDominant Genes (Black Lawrence Press, 2022)ISBN 978-1-62557-717-7 | 37 pp | $9.95 USD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Dominant Genes is one of the latest chapbooks by Tamil diaspora writer SJ Sindu, published by Black Lawrence Press. This genre-bending book is playful and fierce; stark and lyrical; tender and packed with satisfying, full-blooming rage. Sindu examines many facets of her life in Dominant Genes, including sex and sexuality, genderqueerness and the hold of familial and

USEREVIEW 068 (Capsule): Alignment

Ashley-Elizabeth BestAlignment (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2021)ISBN 978-1-98946-309-3 | 29 pp | $12 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY There’s violence in interpretation, and Alignment — a chapbook by disabled poet and essayist Ashley-Elizabeth Best, published by Rahila’s Ghost Press — sheds light on this violence with stunning and shattering insight. Not only does Best explore how language is interpreted, but she also explores the way in which a suffering mind and body are (mis)interpreted through language,

USEREVIEW 067 (Capsule): Disintegration in Four Parts

Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Emily Anglin, Devon Code and Lee HendersonDisintegration in Four Parts (Coach House Books, 2021)ISBN 978-1-55245-424-4 | 206 pp | $21.95 CAD — BUY here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Starting with the sentence, “all purity is created through resemblance and disavowal,” Disintegration in Four Parts by Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Emily Anglin, Devon Code and Lee Henderson explores the notion of purity in four novellas that are distinct in terms of narrative style, but harmonious in their

USEREVIEW 066: A Bolt of Blue

In this traditional review, gustave morin coaxes forth meaning and explodes the text by turns to bring the quiet poetic revelations of Lorenzo Buj’s debut collection Earlybloom Bombs (2021) bursting onto the literary scene. ISBN 978-1-77785-710-3 | 124 pp | $16.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY In the autumn of 2021, in his sixtieth year, a writer named Lorenzo Buj from Windsor, Ontario did a most curious and unusual thing: he deigned to publish, privately,