Stories about learning how to live, about the things that really matter, the things that connect us to loved ones and that we’re too embarrassed to ever mention again. Chaque automne j’ai envie de mourir by Véronique Côté and Steve Gagnon.
Winner, 2013 Quebec City library readers choice award.

21 Days in October is a true coming-of-age novel set against a politically charged backdrop in 1970s Montreal. And sometimes it takes a good story to remind us of where we’ve come from. Forty years wasn’t so long ago, after all.

Anyone approaching Vincent Thibault’s Parkour and the Art du déplacement expecting a how-to guide filled with fitness drills is in for a surprise. The book could also be called “The Art of Living,” focusing as it does on how to apply the philosophy behind parkour to everyday life.
Photo credit: © www.parkourgenerations.com

Consider the bungalow. Half-baked, facile criticisms often reach my ears. People mock it, say it lacks ambition. It’s the same story you hear about the suburbs, but these critics are selling the bungalow short.

If you’re the slightest bit squeamish, or a lifelong vegan, you might find yourself skimming over a few sections of this novel. Then again, you might just end up being morbidly fascinated by how close it takes you to nature. Poacher’s Faith is a tale to be savoured.

Each paragraph is a snapshot of everyday life on the reserve, a description of a photo or a memory in the narrator’s mind’s eye, the writing “soft as a partridge’s belly.” And the result is quite beautiful.

François Barcelo is a difficult author to pigeonhole. Peter McCambridge takes a look at at his most recent work to examine his recipe for grisly deaths and belly laughs.
Photo credit: © Zélie photographe