David Yoon

I love his writing style, perfectly focused on the mundanities of modern life. Ultimately familiar and erudite, he is the middle-aged father pondering his place in life. While it can be spotty in places, Chabon redeems himself continuously with so much good stuff. His story on how low the bar has been set for fathers, the familiar crunch Lego makes as you look for that singular piece to finish your masterwork, his kid's Dalek t-shirt, the wilderness of childhood and fessing up to his own drug use. He's damned smart and I totally would love to just hang out with the guy.

It's gonzo journalism with a serious geek bent. Not happy to simply report on memory competitors Joshua Foer trains for a year to become a mental athelete and win the American Memory Championship title. He still forgets where he left his keys and, shortly after the world championships, remembered he drove his car to dinner only after taking the subway home.

Still much can be forgiven for any book that contains the following sentence: “People with a great eye for chicken ass naturally gravitate to the Zen-Nippon chick Sexing School”

Absolutely loved Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and knowing that Never Let Me Go was slated to become a movie meant I had to pick it up. I'm glad I didn't read any reviews prior to reading as Kazuo is a master of unfolding subtle little details. Far too many books tend to beat you over the head as they make their point, telegraphing all the important bits and practically screaming “this is important!”
Read the book not the reviews.

This is a trad wife manifesto railing against the godless liberals that dominate the entertainment ecosystem. It's about celebrating the pure sanctity of hetero marriage prevailing over Hollywood hedonism. Let's make America great again through ambitious procreation and relying on good old fashion American born labour, instead of foreign migrant workers. This may be set North of Richmond, but it's truly a harkening to the days of cherry trees, George Washington, and “I can't tell a lie.” This book bleeds red, white, and blue.

I mean.

This is a cozy, Covid-era story filled with warmth and love. The Nelson kids have all returned home during lockdown and are passing the time as the cherry harvest comes in. Their mother Lara indulges in some sun dappled reminiscing of a summer in 1988 down at Tom Lake when she is part of a young theatre troupe putting on a production of Our Town. It is there she first meets Peter Duke who would go on to massive Hollywood fame. Over the course of several days she will share her story, if only to convince her incredulous kids that there's no place she'd rather be than right here, picking cherries on the family farm.

Think of it as bi-partisan literary fiction. I loved it either way.

I feel like I've missed the point of the story, that the considered discourse around the weighty themes of the novel eluded me. I went in buoyed by the sheer love I had for her debut novel Goodbye Vitamin. Once again I found myself carried through the story by the confident and lovely prose. But I just couldn't seem to find a foothold into the story. The first third feels like a will-they-won't-they Crazy Rich Asians pastiche only to switch gears in the second part leaving a sizeable gap that alludes to something nefarious. Again, I enjoyed the coming of age story, but there were dark corners that seemed to promise something more.

I think the story could have worked just as well, if not better, without the genetic technology through-line. That just as much work could have been done without the vague scientific MacGuffin that pervades the narrative. Alternately, the genre elements could have provided firm scaffolding instead of the slight filigree it amounted to. If we're going to mess with genetics let's really lean into the stakes. I wanted to like this more.

I'm only half kidding when I say it's a Rastafarian Educated, but that's too easy an analogy that doesn't do the language justice. Sinclair is a poet and it comes through in the absolutely gorgeous prose here. Describing her life of near poverty in Jamaica, living under the volatile whims of her father and his seemingly arbitrary adherence to Rastafarian tenets only gives you the barest of outlines. It is a truly incredible story that is both unbelievably restrained and measured while searing in its observations. Sinclair manages to extend grace to those whose actions would easily justify a scorched earth takedown. It was a bookclub selection that I wasn't sure about, but found myself grateful for the chance to experience this one.

Honestly, I had to do a Google search on Daniel Kraus to find out how he managed so many lines of print from the NYT to NPR for what is a mediocre, gastrointestinal thriller. Is he married to Anna Wintour? Does he have a pleasure island with comprehensive guest logs? Can he snag backstage passes to Taylor Swift?

This should have been a novella. Just cleave the out all the sad father/son dynamics. We're supposed to believe that Jay is shunned by the local community, his shoes spat on as he passes by for refusing to see his father as his cancer progressed? I'll allow for some emo teenaged angst but come on. Mitt may have been an accomplished local diver but he's was also a belligerent asshole that got kicked from job to job to the point he was fishing golf balls out of the local club's water traps. Meanwhile Jay has been living on the kindness of strangers for most of his teenaged years. Sounds like he was really reviled. Of course without the father son clash how would we get that whale telepathy that becomes essential later on?

Let's just focus on the gooey viscera inside the 60-ton sperm whale that has swallowed Jay. Let's just revel in the squishy, mucid, intestinal, gelatinous and fetid environment that he less than hour to escape from before his oxygen runs out. Jay does some hella whale McGyvering outta that stomach while enduring John Wick levels of abuse. That was fun.

But back to my confusion, the film rights have already been secured. Do they even read these things before snatching them up? I relish the thought of experiencing 90 minutes of barely illuminated dark amidst the persistent sounds of intestinal squelching. Like being trapped in a dryer on tumble filled with jello and a dozen silicone dildos.

Part Wade Davis meets Carlos Castaneda shot through a gonzo filter, I blazed through this in a weekend.

People kept waving this book in my face, it was their call to action, their inspiration. But they weren't desk bound, corporate 9 to 5'ers living a sedentary, middle aged existence. What the hell could be of interest here? An elusive Mexican tribe of runners called the Tarahumaras, evolutionary science, ultramarathons and reconsidering the way we run. Not a lot to recommend this book to me.

I loved it. McDougall goes off in so many directions but manages to hold it all together. A testament to the compelling nature of this read, it's even got me signed up for Couch to 5K - (heavy emphasis on couch). I just love the idea of running not as torture or a means to a (tight) end but as an evolutionary birthright. A potentially joyous, zenlike state of being that can recall our true selves. McDougall does this without going all “The Secret” on you and maintains high geek cred.

What was the last book you read that actually got you off your ass?

It's such a millennial love story. It's a world where breakups are performed online. It's seeing your ex move on and show off their fabulous new single life on social. Brunch with the girls on Insta, TikTok travel with the besties, and who is that guy that keeps showing up in the shots? Concert pics, wine tours, cottage fires — your ex living their best, unemcumbered, happy life while you're wallowing in your fort of pizza boxes, Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

Amplify that by a million - and now your girlfriend is living her dreams on national TV for all the see. Even if you know it's all fake, the book offering it's own clever skewering of reality TV, you can't help but take a little seriously the blossoming romance with the fellow show contestant Adam. This new relationship fueled by his muscular back and smug cheekbones being cheered on by legions of fans. And maybe you're not exactly making the best decisions coming to terms with the ending of the relationship either.

And there's the billionaire douchenozzle who cloaks his selfishness in pseudo spiritual language. His pet project to send humans to Mars is the best he can come up with to escape the slowly disintegrating planet that he and his shareholder friends and the politicians that live in their pockets have completely orchestrated.

It's also about the emotional scars that parents can leave and the outsized influence on what their adult children's relationships might end up looking like despite best efforts.

So it's love in the time of clicks and engagement that offers up a darkly funny mirror into our very online world. The Giller longlist once again pointing me in the direction of some wonderful new voices in Canadian literature.

In the aftermath of the Korean war my mother's brother left an enigmatic note on his pillow before stepping out for school. He never returned and the family lamented his apparent suicide.

A half century later a list of names is published in Koreas' national paper. Part of the warming relations between North and South Korea, it offered the chance for families separated by the border to connect. So far nearly 20 thousand Koreans have participated in face-to-face meetings. My uncle's name is there along with some briefly sketched details of the family tree. He is very much alive and living in North Korea. This was the first any of the family had ever heard from him.

My mother eventually traveled to North Korea to meet with her brother. My uncle was wearing a gold watch and a thinning suit. He confided that they were provided by the government solely for the visit. Other Koreans reunited with long lost relations were at nearby tables. Many had brought gifts of linens, food and clothing. He quietly admitted that gifts were pointless as their intended recipients would probably never see them again.

My mother never talked too much about the visit. After a lifetime apart what do you say? Her brother is relatively affluent by North Korean standards, a professor who has raised a large family. Still, his face was gaunt, his teeth stained and crooked. His hands trembled constantly.

I thought about my uncle a lot while I was reading “Nothing to Envy”. In it author Barbara Demick pieces together the lives of 6 North Koreans who eventually defect to South Korea. It is an incredible and difficult read, especially the chapters outlining the devastating famine of the 1990's which claimed almost 10% of the population. The stories are riveting and framed beautifully. This isn't some dry recounting of facts outlining the poverty of North Korea but wondrously intertwined narratives that don't end with pat answers once they reach South Korea.

Great read.

Pure confection that I guzzled back in no time. Sure Katniss' perpetually misdirected internal dialogue can get old and there's an element of been there done that but I've already picked up book 3. I already bummed knowing that I'm 2/3 finished the entire series.

Should a book about dolphins have trigger warnings? I was not prepared. The jacket copy would have you believe this is an ecological story of family, when really it's the story of a lone female out on her own that gets sex trafficked and meets a battle-scarred military veteran trying to shake his drug habit ...but with dolphins. There's clam bukkake, puffer three-ways, mystical mantas, trans fish, rampant drug use, random telepathy and rape. I'm not kidding. Even if you're ready to fully lean into this, I still found the whole thing disjointed and wildly uneven. There's a long section with a trans fish that feels like a completely different short story wedged into the text, and the overall narrative is hastily rushed off the stage like the author just realized she was late for dinner. Shortlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction it clearly resonates for many, it just was not for me. I'd give it less stars but I had way too much fun reviewing the book itself.

Our cast of characters begins to grow - little do I know how much I will grow to care about these people over the course of the run. The introduction of the head key is a brilliant bit of magic illustrated perfectly by Rodriguez. I love tying the magical system to a physical object which means the magic can be lost, found and stolen. We're setting up the board at a breakneck pace but it never flags even though I'd say the kids are all handling everything far better than might normally be expected.

Who knew cozy fantasy was the way into my hardened heart that was tired of Tolkein, meh on Middle-Earth, over orcs, fed-up with fairies, and done with dwarves.

It's a D&D inspired world where instead of facing off against deadly creatures in search of magical loot hidden in dank caves, your dungeon master has you rolling to pour the perfect latte, discovering biscotti, and building a cozy vibe. As the subtitle claims it's “High Fantasy. Low Stakes. Good Company.” Here. For. It.

It doesn't hurt that Baldree really manages to evoke the warm scent of fresh baked pastries wafting over cooling mugs of hot coffee amidst the sound of convivial conversation. It's found family, a sapphic spark, and holding onto hope against some minor tension with a disgruntled former bandmate and a local crime boss. And while it doesn't bear too close scrutiny as it trips over a host of anachronisms and pat coincidences it is, after all, about the vibes. Feel-good fantasy that has me looking for more in the genre.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the two biggest stars on BattleGround. Peerless warriors on the field, tender lovers off it — they are at the white hot centre of a massive media empire. They're also prisoners who fight to the death to gain their own freedom while entertaining the masses.

We've seen countless variations on this theme onscreen, so all credit to Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah for keeping our interest. We expect the corporate branding on the prisoners clothes and body, we're hardly surprised by the 24/7 coverage on and off the field, we expect the ravenous crowds screaming for blood and developing para-social relationships with people they would otherwise cross the street to avoid. But Adjei-Brenyah can script a bloody spectacle that puts you in the seats of the spectators and suddenly you might find yourself just as caught up in the world, just as complicit as the rest of the rabid fans.

There's an interesting thread with a wife of a super-fan, initially sickened by the bloody display on the field and ethically opposed to everything about the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program that so captures her husband's interest. Initially a conscientious objector, we see her getting wrapped up in the drama that takes place off the field, invested in the relationship between Thurwar and Staxxx. Slowly she too comes around to the gladiatorial combat.

The activists protesting this barbaric spectacle are, perhaps aptly, a nuisance to the main story. Barely there, weakly gesturing at the inhumanity of the whole endeavour, backed up by the multiple footnotes that link the story to our world, to the current realities of America's carceral system. But their cries for justice and compassion are drowned out in the excited roar of the bloodthirsty crowds eager to see who will end up dead or “Low Freed” this time out.

The objections are clumsy and awkward and while appropriate, they kept jolting me out of the story and could hardly mount a credible defence against the pure momentum of the rest of the story. It felt off balance as a result.

Saudade, or the nostalgic longing for something that doesn't exist. It's like a Korean Stand By Me - evoking something at once familiar and resonant but wholly different than my own experience. As a second generation Korean-Canadian am I just tokenizing my own culture? Maybe it's just my version of the Western Cowboy mythos that instead tugs at some idealized Korean sentiment.

How do I explain? Insu is a biracial Korean/German coming of age in a Korean army base during the early 1970's. He's an amalgam of three generations of my family from my folks growing up on the peninsula beneath the shadow of the Korean War, my free-wheeling youth in an age before cell phones and social media, and my own biracial Korean/Dutch-German daughter. It evokes so many of the small towns I visited on my repeated trips to Korea, the funeral mounds in the hills we'd tend to for Chuseok, the lingering presence of the American military, and the barter and grift culture that still pervades. It's a story that tugs at something foreign yet strangely familiar.

Insu is returning to Korea after some time away in the United States which provides a familiar lens from which to view his days spent with his friends around the military base. But in this Korea the black market hustle and hidden club houses comes up against Taoist alchemy, geomancy and transexual shamans. It gets at the unique tensions between the old and new, East and West, Korean Han and American optimism.

Insu is generally large-hearted and sincere, able to navigate the world with adolescent brio. The women here have a different experience and the routes they take through the world carry echos of the Japanese occupation and the continued American presence. Hella Han.

I'm grateful to Spiegel & Grau for reaching out with an advance copy, and so totally nailing what is obviously the white hot centre of my reading wheelhouse.

The conceit is simple enough. It's 1976 and Dana Franklin is moving into her new apartment when she is suddenly transported to the antebellum South of 1819 where she saves a young boy named Rufus. A boy that is a pivotal branch in Dana's own family tree that must be kept alive to ensure Dana continues to exist.

Dana wrestles with her modern day understanding against the backdrop of casual violence. She is far and away more educated than any of the slave holding landowners and yet physically cowed by the merciless whipping she receives. In her words you feel the abject fear that prevents her from making the attempt at escape again. You understand, in a way that wasn't available to you before, the compromises that she is willing to make, and those she accepts in others. It brings the casual cruelty of that time into sharp focus and Rufus is as compelling a villain as you will ever find on the page.

It's as harrowing a read as it is informative, and each side informs the other. An incredible accomplishment that is just as powerful now as it must have been nearly half a century ago.

Tech-bro billionaire Cy Baxter has teamed up with the CIA to test a bleeding-edge, national surveillance program called FUSION. Cy is on the path to a 10-year, $100 billion dollar government contract if he can prove it out.

Enter 10 carefully selected civilians given the task to disappear and avoid capture for 30 days. Whoever can manage that will pocket $3 million dollars. No one suspects that a Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day will somehow manage to avoid capture as the clock counts down.

Simple set-up with a hell of an execution. Short, snappy chapters and enough characters to bounce around and keep the momentum moving even as author McCarten dials up the stakes. This the perfect slump-busting, summer read. While I didn't love the third act turn and found the ending to be a little underwhelming - that's just post-read justifications. I devoured this thing in a few days, happy to suspend disbelief and be carried along for this wholly propulsive ride. Who doesn't love a badass librarian leaning on the real world connections she fosters at her job while she's recommending books to patrons? Makes up for the tantrum-having dick billionaire man-child that we get enough of in the real-world.

It's a plotty thriller where a guerrilla eco-collective named Birnam Wood comes into contact with a moustache-twirling American billionaire with plans inside of plans. This in itself is interesting if not improbable. Our current spate of billionaires hardly seem capable of Lex Luthor levels of nefarious intent as they'd rather fly into space, dive into the depths, or square off in a cage match (or dick measuring contest for that matter)

I digress.

I found I could care less about the twists and turns the story took, even as the stakes kept getting raised. Even Catton feels disinterested in resolving anything and just ends the book. The collision of eco-idealism into rapacious greed is certainly interesting, but I'd rather read Catton exploring the inner lives of working stiffs surmounting their mundane day to day challenges.

Mira and Shelley are wrestling with what they are to each other as the co-founders of Birnam Wood. Shelley is tired of always feeling the bridesmaid, the ride-along, and is poking at the idea of leaving the collective and wrestling with how to break the news. Mira feels the tension and is trying to untangle her own motivations. I know it sounds navel gazing and tedious but I found it beautifully articulated. The scene where the Darvish's have company is a master class in all the unsaid things people navigate during a growing tedious, but familiar dinner with old friends. And I loved the juxtaposition of Tony Gallo's fiery, mansplaining, anti-capitalist screed levelled against Birnam Wood, contrasted against his almost giddy imaginings of uncovering a massive conspiracy.

These are just incredible character studies and Catton only falters with the billionaire Lemoine who is all action with little interiority. He is a shark, ever moving, ever planning — free from the plague of self-doubt or the need to examine his own motivations. He just there to move the plot along. As the story progresses, everyone is increasingly enmeshed in that swirl of action and there's less and less self-examination. The book is poorer for that lack.

Give me more of Catton perfectly encapsulating a nuanced and fully realized character with just the stray thoughts in their head. Hypnotizing.

I just loved this chaotic mess of a book with its queer, goblin era protagonist. Greta is 45 and living in what she describes as the Fight Club house with comfy furniture. She's just an absolute wreck, a complete outsider in this trendy little hipster community where people were “better looking than average and dressed like boutique farmers.” Greta becomes a transcriptionist for the area's lone sex therapist — because of course. This leads to an aural obsession with one of the therapist's clients she names “Big Swiss” in her head.

When she meets “Big Swiss” in person, Greta finds out that Flavia (her real name) is a gynaecologist. Greta opens with “You must get this a lot, but would you mind taking a quick look at this thing on my labia?” Naturally she does not mention that she's been privy to Flavia's sexual therapy sessions. Did I mention Greta is just a huge chaos monkey? The two together make for the most unhinged lesbian relationship.

That chaos is hiding some serious trauma and this book comes with all the trigger warnings. While Big Swiss feels nothing but contempt for what she call “trauma people” and blithely ignores her past horrors, Greta is quietly writing long letters to hers.

This is going to be one of those novels that will do even better onscreen - this thing is made to be adapted and I can't wait to see what Jodie Comer does with the property.

There is this pervasive sense of unease threaded throughout the book, like an unseen menace lurking in the margins. Digging into the dried shrimp fish food in place of any available snacks seems like it's ripe for some sort of reveal. The weasel infestation threatens something more. The reluctance to stay the night at a friends home, only to find yourself falling into a troubled sleep amidst the blue green glow of aquarium lights, tilts to some creeping fear.

Nope. It's not that the looming menace is revealed to be a pile of laundry with the flick of a switch - we're never truly afforded a glimpse at anything that might lend some shape to our unease.

Maybe that disquiet is meant to be paired with the notions of parenthood. There's the breeding of discus fish, the power of the mother weasel, and the parade of friends with their newborns as the narrator and his wife struggle to conceive a child. And maybe that's all the more ominous given the current population crisis, with Japan seeing the lowest number of births in a century paired with the fact that it enjoys one of the highest life expectancies.

Maybe I'm just grasping at straws, a Western reader that needs more resolution to allay my unease, but I just couldn't fully connect with this one.

The short stories have an uncanny feel about them. They're not necessarily foreboding but still slightly off kilter explorations that peter out instead of resolving themselves. The writing is solid and has me yearning for her next full length exploration. In spite of all that, the collection completely slipped through my mind leaving barely a ripple of recollection once I'd finished.

I've never read David Copperfield and I feel like I missed out on some of the inevitable book nerd glee recognizing character parallels between the two. Nonetheless, my stunning gap in the literary canon hardly prevented me from enjoying this modern day retelling set in Appalachia

Damon Fields, otherwise known as Demon Copperhead, is the singular voice carrying us through this tale from his en caul birth onto the gritty vinyl flooring of a Lee County, Virginia mobile home, to his pinballing through the foster care system, eventual opioid addiction and otherwise bleak, unyieldingly horrible time that can barely be considered a childhood.

It's one hell of a story told from the wry eye of Demon who is at turns funny, fiercely proud, and sharp. He knows what the world thinks of him and his ilk. How he's always been dismissed as a redneck, white trash, dumbass hillbilly. But he's here to tell you he's just a product of a system that has needed to denigrate him and his people in order to take advantage of them. To extract value from the land on the backs of its people, to bolster profits for big Pharma consequences be damned, to dismiss them all as entirely unimportant. Kingsolver's got a fierce agenda, but in the mouth of Demon it steps off its soapbox and avoids being preachy at the expense of story.

The travails Demon endures are breathtaking without devolving into maudlin trauma porn. In Kingsolver's hands Demon's life is one cliffhanger after another as she propels this Appalachian epic forward. It's a hell of a tale told well and worth telling.

This is a modern day fairytale that sees biracial 12 year old Noah Gardener receive a letter with nothing inside but a single sheet of paper covered edge to edge in drawings of cats. It's addressed to Bird, a name he hasn't used in years. It's the first in a string of clues that will set him on the path to his mother who disappeared over 3 years ago. He'll be helped in no small part by a network of librarians as he navigates unfamiliar territory. Total bookish catnip.

His hero's journey is set in a near future where a nation reeling from an economic meltdown enacts something called PACT. Preserving American Culture and Traditions ensures God-fearing Americans are protected from subversive forces seeking to sow dissent and outrage. It can quickly remove children from harmful, unAmerican environments and “re-place” them with distant foster families. Turns out these “re-placements” tend to target People of Asian Origins (PAOs or Kung-PAOs as they are often referred - because of course) The thing is, this post-Crisis world is prey to rampant Sinophobia as China is blamed for manipulating markets, imposing tariffs and otherwise trying to bring a once powerful nation to its knees.

So another unevenly distributed dystopia set seconds into the future. A small minority vilified and targeted so that the rest of the nation can blithely go about their day to day. It happens all the time, but the beautiful thing about this book is how it shows that even within a long established, seemingly implacable system, the actions of a single individual can have impact.

Celeste Ng has been consistently good but this is easily my favorite of her books.

John Doe dies in a Belfast hotel room and sets in motion a flurry of conjecture, maudlin sentiment, and mercenary careerism that typifies the celebrity industrial death complex. Mr Doe is clearly a thinly veiled stand-in for Anthony Bourdain and the story is a chance to revel in the sordid machinations of high profile chefs, Michelin starred restaurants, and the vast, opportunistic ecosystem of fame. One wishes the three authors had kept their knives sharp instead of resorting to a slapstick sledgehammer in the form of a broad drunken antagonist and the random vagaries of viral sensation as orchestrated by a slightly bipolar 20-something. It makes for a chaotic read with a motley crew of characters chewing through the scenery in a world that has the interior logic of a schlocky 80's TV movie. Approached as such, it makes for a fun, if forgettable, distraction.