Fall Books 2009

Every fall for the new big book season I do a roundup of selections for The Ottawa Citizen – usually picked up by most CanWest papers.

Due to editing, for some reason Doug Coupland’s Generation A got left off. Now I’m a huge Coupland fan so I would generally always recommend him, but I’ve also read the new book and it’s well worth the read.

A Bountiful Harvest: Highlights of a fall season full of riches

February, Lisa Moore

Here’s my review in the Ottawa Citizen of Lisa Moore’s new book, February. Highly recommended.

Loss of a Family Man

The Factory Voice

The Factory Voice is the debut novel from Canadian poet Jeanette Lynes. It’s set in an airplane factory in Fort William, ON  (now Thunder Bay) during the war, and revolves around the lives of four women workers. I highly recommend reading it. It’s a delightful book.

Here’s my Globe review:

These Women Take Flight

The value of book reviews

According to a poll conducted by Globe Books online (so far at least) the  majority of people choose their books based on reviews. Glad to hear it!

I’ve been reviewing books for more than a decade and always try to highlight what I think a potential reader is looking for in a book. I don’t write reviews to appease the author, publisher or other writers. Having said that, you are in a very precarious place when you’re a reviewer who is also a writer. One day your book will land on someone’s desk to critique. Karma and all.

Books, no matter their skill or talent level, always have redeeming qualities and, in my somewhat informed opinion (based on the sheer volumes I have read), they are like people. You can’t like all of them all the time. I try to focus on the positive and on the elements of a book that are universally appealing.

Some of the books I’ve reviewed become personal, treasured, all-time favourites. In the next little while I’ll be starting a regular feature of Bound to Write, called My Bookshelf, where I’ll talk about books I cannot live without, nor live without seeing everyday on my shelf. (my very strong attachment to books, and the life-saving thoughts, ideas and word arrangements they contain is a topic for another — maybe many other posts)

There are a great many book blogs out there, so why should you read this one? Hopefully for the same reason people read my reviews in various publications and tell me they went right out afterward and bought the book.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome

Bound to Write is a literary blog that will be a venue for all things to do with books and reading. Book news, reviews, author profiles and Q & As. From Canada and around the world.

Feel free to participate, to comment, suggest topics or books & authors to cover.

And thanks for reading.