The End of the End of the World by Jonathan Franzen

For some reason I was living under a rock and by the time I found out Jonathan Franzen had a new book coming out it was only two weeks away from being released in stores. I went out the Tuesday it was released and bought it immediately. Franzen is my second favourite author of all time (after Joan Didion of course) and you can read my author spotlight on him here. His new book The End of the End of the World has maybe my favourite cover art ever, and it's a look at our environment's destruction and its impact on birds - Franzen's true love.

CONTINUE READING

The Winter Series by Elin Hilderbrand

This is the first time we've reviewed an entire series in one post on this blog, but it's probably the only time we've read a full series in the same amount of time as one book. I devoured these four novels. If you're looking for some light, romantic-comedic-dramatic-heartwarming fiction to read over the holidays then keep reading...

CONTINUE READING

2018 Holiday Gift Guide

Books are gifts we love to give ourselves... but also what we love giving anyone else who happens to be in our life during Christmas. Everyone has a handful of hard-to-shop-for people on their lists and let's be honest nobody actually needs anything anymore so books are a great token. Here are the ones we deem gift-worthy this holiday season:

CONTINUE READING

Continental Drift by Russell Banks

What follows is the origin story of how I came to own Russell Bank's Continental Drift AND THEN a review:

CONTINUE READING

When Men Murder Women by Rebecca and Russell Dobash

So, this is a textbook. A full blown, academic textbook that my sweet sister special ordered for me last year because I wanted to read it after reading about the study by Rebecca and Russell Dobash in Murder in Plain English. I didn't know it was a textbook, and honestly, it was too textbook-y for me to enjoy the way I wanted to. I expected it to be more like Murder In Plain English in that it's based on fact but it's still told to the everyday reader like a story... When Men Murder Women is written for sociologists, criminologists, and academics who understand statistics in a way that I did for about ~5 seconds while doing my MA but have since retained nothing. I did read it, however. I was still interested in the content and I really wanted to learn about the study they did. Since I would never recommend any of you read it, I will try to talk generally about the research and try to avoid it sounding like a thesis or literature review.

CONTINUE READING

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

I was really excited to read this book when I heard that Joel Edgerton was doing the movie and it was starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Stories about gay conversion camps are terrifying to me and I was interested in reading a first-person perspective on this. Earlier in the year Ben and I drove to Halifax to see four movies and one of them was The Miseducation of Cameron Post (a similar storyline but starring Chloe Grace Moretz), and as of right now the reviews for MCP are much better than Boy Erased. Oh well, the book was still worth discovering.

CONTINUE READING

Our 10 Favourite Young Adult Books

We've both been big readers for like, ever, and clearly big 'series' girls, with eerily similar tastes before we even knew each other. Reminiscing about the plot lines and characters that shaped our young adult years is a favourite past time for us, so we thought we'd share our 10 favourite YA books with you guys today. Our lifelong lack of interest in athletics definitely stems from us having our noses in a book 95% of our young adult lives.

CONTINUE READING

Lifesaving for Beginners by Anne Edelstein

To be honest I'd never heard of this book before, but the team over at TLC Book Tours knew our love of memoirs and flagged it as something we'd maybe be interested in reviewing. I read the synopsis briefly and learned that it's a woman's account of living with grief after her mother drowns suddenly - sign me up for this type of content every time. I'm incredibly happy that I gave this book a chance (sometimes I can be stuck up about trying new authors). This really feels like the book Anne Edelstein was born to write. She is a born writer who has been hiding out as a literary agent.

CONTINUE READING

Dark Summit by Nick Heil

I am obsessed with like three things: Joan Didion, athletes who dope, and Mt. Everest. And Lebron. So four things. I know a few people who are obsessed/fascinated with the highest mountain on Earth, many who have read John Krakauer's first-person account of the 1996 tragedy that killed eight.

CONTINUE READING

In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham

This review will be very short as the book itself is ridiculously short. I read it in two, twenty-minute bath sessions. I didn't entirely know it was more of a 'Hallmark' book before adding it to my wish list but I did know it was an expanded version of the commencement speech she gave at her high school (Langley High) in 2017, so I sort of expected it to be shorter and a tad cheesy. I almost decided it wasn't really the type of book we'd normally review on this blog, but thought I'd better in case any of you were half expecting more of a novel like I was.

CONTINUE READING

Brown & Dickson's Fall Reading List

We thought you may be tired of hearing from us Megs, so we invited bookselling couple Jason Dickson and Vanessa Brown (of London, Ontario's lovely antiquarian bookstore Brown & Dickson) to provide you with some wildly different recommendations on their fall reading list. I know we're off to spend the weekend hunting a few of these down ourselves now...

CONTINUE READING

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I have always found it more difficult to write reviews for fiction books than non-fiction, and Elizabeth Strout's Oliver Kitteridge is no exception. I did enjoy reading this book but have been slow to review it, so here goes my best effort:

CONTINUE READING