Book Reviews

A reminder of why 1999 was the best movie year ever

Upheaval is like an intriguing self-help manual — but like most self-help books, it seems more glib than profound

Jo Walton’s story of a demon-fighting monk is a clever and original romp

Writer Sara Collins’s The Confessions of Frannie Langton will make you want to engage with your own reality differently

Writer Richard Van Camp creates an Indigenous world full of imaginative power in Moccasin Square Gardens

Amy Jones’s Every Little Piece of Me is an addictive tale of stardom and downsides of fame

Max Porter’s Lanny is about how we treat difference, and the magnetic pull of goodness in adversity

Anthony De Sa’s Children of the moon explores the universal significance of memory and story

Coconut Dreams is a story collection that reads like a novel

Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Brightness Long Ago returns us to the fictional world of Batiara

Roy MacLaren eschews biography to deliver a merciless takedown of Mackenzie King’s response to Hitler and fascism

The latest cookbooks and food memoirs to savour

Reading list for news junkies: 13 new books that tell stories from behind the headlines

Adam Foulds’ Dream Sequence reminds readers to value what you have now

Rabindranath Maharaj’s Fatboy Fall Down revolves around immigration without mentioning it

Provisionally Yours postwar novel is a story of the margins

In Mistakes to Run With, award-winning author Yasuko Thanh looks back at a life of struggle and survival

Where They Once Stood re-examines Newfoundland’s rocky journey to Confederation

Shandi Mitchell’s thrilling novel The Waiting Hours is as suspenseful as it is introspective

John Delacourt’s thriller novel Butterfly explores the ideas of memory and revenge in the digital age

The Tangled Garden is bracing reading on the failure to protect Canadian culture in the digital age

Globe Book Club: Read The Globe and Mail’s original review of Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone

Maureen Jennings leaves behind Murdoch for a female PI

Clive Thompson takes us inside the minds of the coders who control our digital lives

Why Sally Rooney’s radical Normal People reminds me most of the decidedly unradical Alice Munro

Author Alexandra Kimball nurtures a new discussion in The Seed: Infertility Is a Feminist Issue

Amy Spurway’s debut book Crow is ridiculous – and ridiculously good

Leanne Shapton’s collection Guestbook imbues the personal with pathos

Not-so-funny animals: Four comics you should read this spring

Author Mark Bourrie captures the disturbing, historic adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson

These seven kids’ books are (more than) all right for spring

Alicia Elliott’s new book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a tour de force