Big Shadow: The Playlist

Today’s book playlist is by Marta Balcewicz, to pair with her debut novel Big Shadow, an affecting coming-of-age novel of psychological nuance and dark humour. In an unnamed town in the summer of 1998, Judy is an isolated and inexperienced teenager on the cusp of adulthood struggling to craft an identity for herself—especially as the artist she wants […]

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archipelago: The Playlist

Today’s book playlist was made by Laila Malik to complement her debut poetry collection, archipelago. The poems in archipelago intertwine histories of exile and ecological devastation. Beginning with a coming of age in the 80s and 90s between Canada, the Arabian Gulf, East Africa and Kashmir, they subvert conventions of lineage, instead drawing on the truths of […]

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Vox Humana: The Playlist

Today’s book playlist is by Adebe DeRango-Adem, to pair with her new poetry collection, Vox Humana! Vox Humana (Latin for “human voice”) is driven by a sense of political urgency to probe the ethics of agency in a world that actively resists the participation of some voices over others. In and through literary experiments with word […]

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The Animals: The Playlist

Today’s book playlist was made by Cary Fagan to compliment his new novel, The Animals. A realist work with the air of a fairy tale, The Animals is a surprising, funny, and thought-provoking story that explores the nature of relationships faunal and human, and reminds us of the challenges of finding one’s place in society . . […]

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Learned: The Official Playlist

Next up in our book playlist series, we are joined by Carellin Brooks with with tunes for her poetry collection Learned! Set in the 90s, alternating between the storied quads of Oxford University and the dank recesses of London pubs given over to public displays of queer BDSM, Learned chronicles poet and Rhodes Scholar Carellin Brooks’ extreme explorations […]

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Imminent Domains: The Playlist

Today’s book playlist was crafted by Alessandra Naccarato for her essay collection, Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene. Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene invites readers to join a contemplation of survival—our own, and that of the elements that surround us. Using research, lyric prose, and first-hand experiences, Alessandra Naccarato addresses fundamental questions about our modern […]

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tend: The Playlist

Next up in our official book playlist series, we welcome Kate Hargreaves’s tend! Visceral and playful, tend reflects the intimate awkwardness of modern life. It explores feelings of being distanced from loved ones, physically and emotionally; striving to be better (at chores, at intimacy); and tending to the things that fracture. Find Hargreaves’s tend playlist below, or […]

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Junie: The Playlist

This week in our official book playlist series, we welcome Chelene Knight’s Junie! 1930s, Hogan’s Alley—a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver’s East End. Junie is a creative, observant child who moves to the alley with her mother, Maddie: a jazz singer with a growing alcohol dependency. “Despite poverty and the unkindness of […]

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A Convergence of Solitudes: the Playlist

Next up in our official book playlist series, we welcome Anita Anand’s A Convergence of Solitudes—a novel with music at its very heart. Needless to say, we were excited for this one! “A Convergence of Solitudes is an ambitious novel structured as a double album and focusing on two different families. Over the decades that […]

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Bystander: The Playlist

For the next instalment of our Book Playlist series, we welcome Mike Steeves to the blog with a collection of songs to accompany his novel Bystander. Narrated by a professionally successful but socially bankrupt anti-hero, Bystander excoriates the contingency of contemporary morality and, at a time of growing isolation, asks us to examine what it means […]

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