Free Press book reviewers pick their favourite reads of 2015
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.75 per week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19.00 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel anytime.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/12/2015 (2716 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
FICTION
A Beauty
By Connie Gault
SET in 1930s rural Saskatchewan, this novel focuses on a young, charismatic Finnish woman and her impact on the people she encounters. It’s a compelling story filled with vivid characterization as well as an exploration of universal themes such as loss, belonging and the nature of forgiveness.
— Bev Sandell Greenberg
A Little More Free
By John McFetridge
McFETRIDGE’S police procedurals featuring working-class bilingual Montreal beat cop Eddie Dougherty are brilliant mysteries, but far more than that, the author uses Dougherty’s awakening awareness of the world around him to explore and examine crucial times in Canadian history. Here, against the backdrop of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union national hockey teams, Dougherty discovers a hidden world of draft dodgers and deserters from the U.S. war in southeast Asia, systemic persecution of homosexuals, the stirring of Quebec nationalism, and the beginning of organized crime’s taking hold in the province.
— Nick Martin
Atavisms
By Raymond Bock
QUÉBÉCOIS author Raymond Bock dissects the darker psychological and social strains in Quebec history in 13 wild, brave and moving stories. Though there’s no specific thread linking the stories, they seem, when read, to connect the history of Quebec and its people in a profound way. Bock’s prose displays a master of style and technique.
— Rory Runnells
The Book of Aron
By Jim Shepherd
WHEN Jim Shepherd’s novel The Book of Aron opens, Aron Rozyckis is nine years old. When it ends, he’s 13 and on his way, it seems, to certain death in the gas chambers of Treblinka. Between that beginning and end, Shepherd has Aron tell the story of his life in a voice that is so authentic, so bewildered and so sad that it will break the reader’s heart.
— Sharon Chisvin
Charlie Martz and Other Stories
By Elmore Leonard
IF you’ve never read the crime novels and stories of Elmore Leonard, the posthumously published Charlie Martz and Other Stories is a good place to start. It showcases all of his concision, his subtly changing tonalities, his wry humour, his easy charm, his tough-guy’s sense of story and character.
— Gene Walz
The Golden Son
By Shilpi Somaya Gowda
THE Golden Son successfully achieves the virtually impossible: it is every bit as good and strong as its author’s internationally bestselling debut novel, Secret Daughter.
The Golden Son focuses on Anil, who leaves his large family in rural India to do a medical residency in Dallas, Texas.
Both The Golden Son and Secret Daughter are set in India and North America, and tell compelling stories that make each a page turner and a fast read. Both are extremely well-written with riveting plots. Gowda is a born storyteller.
— Brenlee Carrington
His Whole Life
By Elizabeth Hay
ELIZABETH Hay uses the contrasting setting of Ontario lake country and the streets of New York City to skilfully tell a moving tale of changing family dynamics and Canada’s political strife in the mid-1990s as seen through the eyes of a preteen boy.
— Andrea Geary
Hope Makes Love
By Trevor Cole
AFTER the disappointing Practical Jean, Trevor Cole is back in top form with Hope Makes Love. Zep Baker, under the tutelage of brain scientist Hope Riopelle, tries to manufacture love in his ex-wife Emily Good. Trouble ensues.
— Reinhold Kramer
Infinitum
By G.M.B. Chomichuk
SPECIAL Investigator Nine must work to prevent a seemingly unpreventable murder, with his own time-travelling selves as his multiple backups. However, in order to solve the crime, he must work to change the one moment in his past that means the most to him. An experimental graphic novel that blends a science-fiction time-travel story with a noir crime thriller plot in order to subvert the conventions of both genres.
— Jonathan Ball
The Jaguar’s Children
By John Vaillant
MEXICAN migrants hoping to enter the U.S. illegally wait for rescue or death in the confines of a sealed water tank abandoned by smugglers. Based on the soundfiles and text messages found on a cellphone of a migrant who died in the searing desert heat, the wrenching story is revealed of Latin America’s plunder at the hands of colonial masters, old and very new.
— Harriet Zaidman
Killing and Dying
By Adrian Tomine
A VISUALLY stunning and emotionally powerful collection of graphic short stories that takes us inside the everyday experiences, dreams and delusions of a demographically diverse group of American characters. Tomine’s complex narrative structures and note-perfect dialogue make this one of the best short-fiction collections of the year that just happens to be in the form of comics.
— Candida Rifkind
Liberty Street
By Dianne Warren
THIS is the rich, complex and quietly funny story of Frances Mary Moon, who traces her roots to a small town in northern Saskatchewan. Frances often makes poor choices but ultimately this is a story of compassion, healing and of coming to terms with one’s past told with intelligence, humour and wit.
— Cheryl Girard
The Past
By Tessa Hadley
IN her sixth novel, England’s Tessa Hadley presents a three-week family get-together at a run-down rural vicarage. Hadley rivals American Anne Tyler in her knack for bringing a large number of siblings to life, enthralling us with their authentic voices, thoughts and quirks.
— Dave Williamson
Purity
By Jonathan Franzen
THE American literary heavyweight’s latest tour de force explores the struggles of people trying to live ethically — purely, as it were — in the modern world. It is also a more sober and serious novel, less satirical than anything he has produced to date. In fact, its core event is a murder, from which most of its plot ripples out.
— Morley Walker
Too Far Gone
By Chadwick Ginther
TOO Far Gone is the final volume in the Thunder Road trilogy by Chadwick Ginther, a master fantasy/noir storyteller based in Winnipeg. Having defeated the mighty Thor and acquiring his hammer, anti-hero Ted Callan has left Winnipeg on a trip to Edmonton, where he hopes to have a relatively quiet family reunion and attend his best friend’s wedding. Unfortunately, the trickster god Loki is along for the ride, transformed into a stripper. Needless to say, Ted’s family and friends are less than impressed.
— Chris Rutkowski
Undermajordomo Minor
By Patrick De Witt
DE Witt follows up on his much-lauded western The Sisters Brothers with a touching, beautifully written, darkly funny fable set in continental Europe. Lucien (Lucy) Minor takes a job at the mysterious Castle Von Aux; in the nearby town he meets the beautiful Klara, and the two fall in love. As their romance hits bumps in the road, mysterious goings-on at the castle lead Lucy to investigate the whereabouts of the absent Baron Von Aux.
— Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson
Vanessa and her Sister
By Priya Parmar
BEFORE there was Woodstock there was the Bloomsbury Group, a constellation of free spirits kicking over the traces of their Victorian upbringing.
This novel gives them as sharp an outline as one of Vanessa’s paintings.
— Ron Robinson
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
By Alexandra Kleeman
ALEXANDRA Kleeman’s sharply written but profoundly weird debut novel maps a trio of unnamed characters through their increasing alienation from the world, each other and their own bodies. Challenging yet immensely readable, the novel heralds a striking, fully-formed talent — as well as a preview of what the future of literature itself might look like.
— Doug McLean
NON-FICTION
Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act
By Dan Rubinstein
JOURNALIST-TREKKER Dan Rubinstein tests his hypothesis that walking can fix — or at least patch — a broken world, weaving accounts of his wanderings with other anecdotes, contemporary studies and statistics, many of them Canadian. This book should be required reading for our nation’s politicians, policy-makers, planners and pedestrians.
— Gail Perry
The Carbon Bubble: What Happens to Us When it Bursts
By Jeff Rubin
PUBLISHED a few weeks before the stunning upset of a provincial regime that had lasted several decades, economist Jeff Rubin criticizes Alberta’s over-reliance on oilsands development.
In many ways prescient of world leaders’ recent and long-awaited curbs on carbon, the book also offers tips on ethical investing, satisfying the green movement and die-hard capitalists alike.
— Joseph Hnatiuk
Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt
By Kristin Hersh
KRISTIN Hersh’s heartbreaking memoir of her friendship and musical partnership with the late Vic Chesnutt stands as a perfect tribute to the singer’s brilliance and irascibility. Hersh eschews strict biography and continuity in favour of dream-like vignettes, imagined communications and a host of unsaid words to detail a story of triumph, loss and being left behind.
— Doug McLean
Fight to the Finish: Canadians in the Second World War 1944-1945
By Tim Cook
Once again the Canadian historian has given us a door-stopper that presents a combination of the big picture with the anecdotal view from the slit trench, the cockpit and the foredeck.
— Ron Robinson
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
By Jenny Lawson
IN her second book, the popular blogger and New York Times bestselling author gets beautifully real and furthers the much-needed conversation about mental illness, with many laughs and a few tears along the way.
— Julie Kentner
H is for Hawk
By Helen Macdonald
FACED with the sudden, devastating death of her father, Helen Macdonald tries to manage her pain by purchasing and training a young goshawk. H Is for Hawk is uniquely multifaceted — a mesmerizing memoir combined with a hawk-trainer’s diary, and a biography of T.H. White. All three of these strands are presented in vivid detail — clear, frank, and evocative.
— Gene Walz
The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation
Edited by Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill and Sophie McCall
THE indigenous and non-indigenous artists and writers represented in this inspiring and beautifully-produced volume have crafted a disruptive and thought-provoking challenge to mainstream dialogue on reconciliation.
— Michael Dudley
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
By JohnJoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili
LIFE on the Edge is by scientists specializing in genetics and physics who argue that quantum physics plays a fundamental role in life on Earth, and that our existence depends on it. “The way you walk or talk or eat or sleep or even think must ultimately depend on quantum mechanical forces governing electrons, protons and other particles,” they explain, “just as the operation of your car or toaster depends, ultimately, on quantum mechanics.” But, they add, “by and large, you don’t need to know that.”
— Chris Rutkowski
Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain’s Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WW II
By Deborah Cadbury
CADBURY’S account of the tensions within the British royal family during the Second World War is dramatic, inspiring and highly readable.
— Graeme Voyer
The Reason You Walk
By Wab Kinew
WAB Kinew’s The Reason You Walk presents us with a vital voice in the reconciliation movement that we must all engage across the country. Its resonance echoes beyond its individual and local origins; we should be thankful for its raw and compelling honesty.
— Neil Besner
The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island
By Bill Bryson
BRYSON meanders about Britain again 20 years after writing Notes From a Small Island, rediscovering his beloved island and visiting new sites and cities along the way. He is masterful with the English language, often outspoken, mostly cheerful, enthusiastic about history and wondrously good at telling amusing stories.
— Cheryl Girard
Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey into the New Heart of Africa
By Will Ferguson
CALGARY’S Will Ferguson visited the central African country of Rwanda and was astounded by its economic and social recovery from the 1990s genocide. He cleverly weaves together details of the change with descriptions of the rugged terrain, the exotic animals, and the local hospitality.
— Dave Williamson
Sinatra: The Chairman
By James Kaplan
THIS nearly 1,000-page biographical opus is a masterful, compelling and eminently readable book about the fears, emotions and inner turmoil of a musical legend.
— Julie Kentner
Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
By Rosemary Sullivan
CRITICALLY acclaimed biographer Rosemary Sullivan has written a thoroughly researched account of Stalin’s daughter’s tormented life. It is a gripping account of how a woman born into a society of spies, informants, secret police and arbitrary murder tried, and failed, to take control of her own life.
— John K. Collins
Why Did You Do That? The Autobiography of a Human Rights Advocate
By David Matas
THE Russians loathe him and the Chinese revile him. David Matas is a super-human global force for righteous conduct. If most Canadians knew him (most don’t) they’d want a bronze of him outside our Canadian Museum for Human Rights next to the one of Gandhi. As an ex-journalist and cynic, I can’t believe I’m saying this — Matas is a national treasure.
— Barry Craig
If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism.
BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER
Click here to learn more about the project.
History
Updated on Saturday, December 26, 2015 8:21 AM CST: Formatting.
Updated on Sunday, December 27, 2015 12:42 PM CST: Photos tweaked.