I was travelling for much of Fall 2025 and let my book reviewing lapse. Now that I’m back in Canada, here’s a favourite read from the past six months.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, 2021. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Irish Times Readers’ Choice for Best Irish Book of the Century.
Small Things Like These delivers storytelling at its finest. Not a wasted word.
Keegan’s 2021 novellais a masterpiece of tone and fidelity, powerfully evocative of life in Ireland. The tale is reminiscent of The Dead, a short story in James Joyce’s Dubliners. Both are Irish gems.
Sit in front of a hearth with a loved one and read Keegan’s book out loud to them.
Anyone who’s been to ‘The Rock’ knows Newfoundlanders love to tell stories. I can’t think of any Newfoundland and Labrador author more accomplished than Michael Crummey.
Over a span of six novels, from River Thieves (2001) to The Adversary (2023), Crummey has wrangled and harnessed Newfoundland English, transforming an ever-changing spoken vernacular into prose – a difficult task, one he’s discharged with flying colours.
Each of Crummey’s novels is both a haunting tale and a feast of words. He spins splendid descriptions and memorable dialogs. If you want to hear Newfoundland and feel it too, pick up a Crummey novel.
Crummey’s latest, The Adversary, winner of the 2025 International Dublin Literary Award, catapults the reader to the fishing port of Mockbeggar, Newfoundland. It’s the late 1700s. One year the Atlantic is choked with cod; the next, it’s barren. One day the sky is clear; the next, it’s a howling grey wolf. The novel delivers an evocative tale, an unsparing story of two warring siblings.
PS: List of Michael Crummey novels in order of publication: River Thieves (2001); The Wreckage (2005); Galore (2009); Sweetland (2014); The Innocents (2019); The Adversary (2023). Crummey has also published poetry, short stories, and non-fiction. For further information, see the author on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crummey.
To give a book is to give a window into another world. Here are four gift ideas for the 2024 Holidays.
First, a mystery/detective suggestion:
The Lock-Up by John Banville, 2023. Booker Prize-Winner John Banville writes inventive whodunits that also happen to be eloquent and atmospheric. The Lock-Up, a Strafford and Quirke Mystery, evokes the sights, smells, and sounds of mid-1900s Ireland. If your giftee is a fan of character-driven detective tales, giftwrap The Lock-Up for them.
In Winter I Get Up at Night by Jane Urquhart, 2024. Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize. Urquhart’s latest novel cements her reputation as one of Canada’s finest historical fiction authors. The novel is a wide-sweeping tale encompassing artistry, education, and politics in the first half of the twentieth century. Sure to please lovers of Canadiana as well as historical and prairie fiction.
Playground by Richard Powers, 2024. Given his wide fictional lens, Pulitzer Prize-Winner Richard Powers is one of the most thought-provoking American novelists of the past ten years. Although the opening sags a bit, Playgroundsoon lifts off and the story soars, a tale intertwining AI and the future of the world’s oceans. The novel is, by turns, playful and disquieting. It is also inventive, evocative, and forward-looking.
Held by Anne Michaels, 2024. Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize | Winner of the 2024 Giller Prize. Heldis poetic without being precious, revealing solid bones under a lyrical skin. The novel won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Some will find the storyline scattered. Like C.S. Richardson’s All The Colour In the World, Heldrequires the reader to slow down. If they do, Michaels’ cadence and imagery will pull them in.
To give a book is to give a window into another world. Here are five gift ideas for the 2023 Holidays.
First, two mystery/detective suggestions:
The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag, English translation from the Swedish, 2019. The Wolf and the Watchman should please any fan of historical crime/mystery fiction. The novel (set in 1793, in Sweden) presents a captivating tale, beautifully told. The whodunit angle alternates between darkness and light, judiciously balancing good and evil. The Wolf and the Watchman is the first book in the Jean Mickel Cardell trilogy, which includes The City Between the Bridges and The Order of the Furies.
Muskie Falls by Ron Corbett, 2023. The first novel in Corbett’s Detective Yakabuski series, Ragged Lake, revealed that Corbett (from Ottawa, Canada) was a born storyteller. With Muskie Falls, the fourth novel in the series, his story-telling virtuosity becomes even clearer. Muskie Falls is equal parts riveting mystery and stylistic tour-de-force. The plot unfolds on the fictionalized Northern Divide, an unforgettable locale, perfectly rendered. The story is delivered with nuanced authenticity and the rip-roaring drive of a northern river.
All The Colour In The World by C.S. Richardson, 2023. All The Colour In The World is lean, fast-paced, and atmospheric, more prose poem than traditional novel. If your giftee prefers expansive, detailed novels, this won’t likely be their cup of cheer. On the other hand, if they like reading outside the box, this could be their cuppa, a spare yet powerful story, anchored in Toronto but displaying all the colours of the world.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, 2023. Birnam Wood is both a beguiling story and a novel of ideas, a crucible of eco-idealism, survivalism, and human striving. The novel transports the reader to NZ’s South Island. Catton, a previous Booker Prize winner, knows how to hook an audience. The plot unfolds slowly (perhaps too slowly for some) but cleverly, reaching a thriller-type crescendo.
The Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux, 2011. Some travel books are timeless. Theroux’s The Tao of Travel is one of them. It contains a collection of evocative quotes whose origins span the globe. The reader can open itat any page. They’ll be instantly transported to the quote’s location. When they’re ready to venture off again, they can simply turn the page.
This year, I fell for two of the five books on Canada’s Giller Prize shortlist: All The Colour In The World by C.S. Richardson and Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. “Only two?” you say. True. However, for me, two out of five is a windfall. Some years I don’t fall for any.
All The Colour In The World is fast-paced and atmospheric, more prose poem than traditional novel. Birnam Woodunfolds slowly (perhaps too slowly for some), delving deeply into its characters’ motivations. Set largely in Toronto, Richardson’s story deploys short evocative anecdotes; Catton’s relies on lengthy episodic portraits to spin a tale set in New Zealand’s South Island. While All The Colour In The World is a paean to memory and the power of art, Birnam Woodis primarily a novel of ideas, a crucible of eco-idealism, survivalism, and human striving.
North Noir 