Mini Book Expo For Bloggers

Mother Superior [T. Chouinard's review]

Mother Superior is a real page turner for T. Chouinard:

The day I got this book I started reading it and couldn't put it down until I was on page 25. It's a great read for anyone that knows what it's like to be a mom.  I found the short stories about being a woman and what women go through, great.  I have recommended this book to several folks, plus I have a few people who want to borrow my copy.  It's one of those books that I can see myself reading again. The 1st story of the book is about a woman who is going to give birth and doesn't care about the baby until... well, read the book! These stories are emotional and endearing; if you have a chance to read this book, do it!   It's a great book.
* 4 stars *

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More information

• Extra Info: excerpt
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com
• ISBN-10: 1551119277 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119274

It's Hard Being Queen [Heather's Review]

I'm a Pet Head. I admit that the first experience I've had with Dusty Springfield was through The Pet Shop Boy's single What Have I Done To Deserve This? Heather got herself a copy of It's Hard Being Queen and it made her smile:

I loved that Jeanette's writing style is not uniformed, that she writes her poems in several different styles so it gives her readers a bit of a verity.

Keep reading Heather's review...

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More information

• Read an except
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com
• Paperback: 96 pages 
• Publisher: FreeHand Books (September 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119269 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119267

Good to a Fault [S. Krishna's Review]

S.Krishna's from S.Krishna's Books, had some tough questions when they chose Good to a Fault. Their thoughtful review is snipped here:

When I first heard about Good to a Fault, it appealed to me because I enjoy books that provoke thought and raise questions. I wanted to know, what were Clary's motives? Why did she invite an entire family to live with her, when she had no real obligation to them? Was it some sort of charity, perhaps inspired by her religion?...

Keep reading S.Krisna's review...

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More information

• Extra Info: Excerpt
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com
• Hardcover: 376 pages 
• Publisher: FreeHand Books; 1st edition (July 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119293 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119298

Mother Superior [Saleema Nawaz]

Mother Superior introduces Saleema Nawaz as a truly bold new voice in fiction. Gorgeous, sensuous prose and edgy, taboo-breaking subject matter combine to create a collection quite unlike anything else being published today. 

A prostitute takes shelter with a group of young anarchists. A sister goes missing, mailing a trail of encoded postcards from destinations across the globe. The daughters of a Montreal bagel-shop owner navigate the tricky terrain of being young, Sikh, and female, one growing larger while the other fades. A woman watches with lust and longing as the object of her affections, her pregnant roommate, is pursued by an unsavory suitor. And a precocious child spies on her adoptive mother, trying to grasp the secret of her mother’s hidden obsession and of her own unexplained origins. 

The seven stories and two novellas in Mother Superior are a heady blend of misfits and mothers, of sisters and complex, mysterious others. Nawaz traces the scars left by family secrets and sings the complex, captivating language of lust and of love. 

About the Author

Saleema Nawaz’s fiction has appeared in journals including Prairie Fire, Grain, The New Quarterly, and PRISM international and she is an alumnus of the Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Her novella "The White Dress" took second place in the Malahat Review's novella contest and won the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Award for Best Creative Thesis at the University of Manitoba. "My Three Girls," a story in Mother Superior, will appear in the 2008 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize Anthology.  Saleema lives in Montreal, where she is at work on her first novel.

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More information

• Extra Info: excerpt
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com

Product Details

• 2 copies available This book is CLAIMED 
• Paperback: 290 pages 
• Publisher: Freehand Books (September 10, 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119277 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119274

Shipping Worldwide sponsored by Freehand Books

Pathologies [Susan Olding]

Courtesy of Freehand Books

“In simple terms, pathology is the scientific study of the way things go wrong.” 

In these fifteen searingly honest personal essays, debut author Susan Olding takes us on an unforgettable journey into the complex heart of being human. 

Each essay dissects an aspect of Olding’s life experience—from her vexed relationship with her father to her tricky dealings with her female peers; from her work as a counsellor and teacher to her persistent desire, despite struggles with infertility, to have children of her own. In a suite of essays forming the emotional climax of the book, Olding bravely recounts the adoption of her daughter, Maia, from an orphanage in China, and tells us the story of Maia’s difficult adaptation to the unfamiliar state of being loved.

Written with as much lyricism, detail, and artfulness as the best short stories, the essays in Pathologies provide all the pleasures of fiction combined with the enrichment derived from the careful presentation of fact. Susan Olding is indisputably one of Canada’s finest new writers, one who has taken the challenging, much-underused form of the literary essay and made it her own.

About the Author

Susan Olding was recently named one of The New Quarterly’s “Most Loved Living Writers” alongside authors including Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Her poetry and prose have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies across Canada and the United States. She has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award, two Western Magazine Awards, and a CBC Literary Award; she is also a two-time winner of the Event Creative Non-fiction Contest and a winner of the Prairie Fire Non-fiction Contest. Born in Toronto, Susan Olding currently lives with her family in Kingston, Ontario, where she works at the Queen’s University Writing Centre.

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More information

• Author Site: www.susanolding.com
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com

Product Details

• 2 copies available This book is CLAIMED
• Perfect Paperback: 272 pages 
• Publisher: FreeHand Books; 1st edition (September 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119307 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119304

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It's Hard Being Queen [Jeanette Lynes]

The Dusty Springfield Poems

Courtesy of Freehand Books

In this, her fourth book of poetry, one of Canada’s best-loved poets takes on one of the most compelling divas of our time. In sixty-one audacious poems, Jeanette Lynes re-imagines and reanimates the peripatetic art, life, and times of Dusty Springfield.

Alternating between playful irreverence and profound compassion, It’s Hard Being Queen paints a compulsively readable portrait of an extraordinary life. Each page is infused with wit, drama, and, of course, music. Jeanette Lynes not only steps into the icon’s shoes—she lives in her skin.

About the Author
Jeanette Lynes has previously published three collections of poetry: Left Fields (Wolsak and Wynn, 2003, shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award), The Aging Cheerleader’s Alphabet (Mansfield Press, 2003), and A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway (Wolsak and Wynn, 1999). Her awards include the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, the Bliss Carman Award, and first prize in the Grain Postcard Story Competition. She has been a visiting artist / writer-in-residence at Queen’s University, Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, and the Saskatoon Public Library, as well as a faculty member of Francis Xavier University and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. She is currently co-editor of The Antigonish Review. Jeanette Lynes grew up on a farm in Alice Munro country while "Son of a Preacher Man" played on transistor radios everywhere.

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More information

• Read an except
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com

Product Details

• 2 copies available  This book CLAIMED 
• Paperback: 96 pages 
• Publisher: FreeHand Books (September 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119269 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119267

Shipping Worldwide sponsored by Freehand Books

Good to a Fault [Marina Endicott]

Courtesy of Freehand Books

In a novel reminiscent of the work of Penelope Lively, Anne Tyler, and Alice Munro, acclaimed author Marina Endicott gives us one of the most profound and most memorable reads of the year.

Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara—against all habit and comfort—moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house. 

We know what is good, but we don’t do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own?

What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve? This compassionate, funny, and fiercely intelligent novel looks at life and death through grocery-store reading glasses: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice. 

About the Author

Marina Endicott was born in Golden, BC, and grew up in Nova Scotia and Toronto. She worked as an actor and director before moving to London, England, where she began to write fiction. Since returning to Canada in 1984, she has worked as Dramaturge at the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre and Associate Dramaturge at the Banff Centre’s Playwrights Colony. She now teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta. 

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More information

• Extra Info: Excerpt
• Freehand Books | Chapters.ca  | Amazon.com

Product Details

• 2 copies available  This book is CLAIMED
• Hardcover: 376 pages 
• Publisher: FreeHand Books; 1st edition (July 2008) 
• ISBN-10: 1551119293 
• ISBN-13: 978-1551119298

Shipping Worldwide sponsored by Freehand Books