I've Read This

It’s been a few years since Calgary author (and my friend!) Glenn Dixon has released a book, but I’ve always enjoyed his writing, so I was excited to pick up a copy of his latest novel, The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances. For those who are already feeling a bit nervous about artificial intelligence, be warned that this book won’t make you feel much better about it.

A new mystery series by a Canadian author is always a fun project for me to dive into, so I was delighted to read As We Forgive Others, and A Place of Secrets by Shane Peacock. They were published consecutively in 2024 and 2025, and I’m hopeful another is on the way shortly. They are subtitled as a “Northern Gothic Mystery” which is a unique way of describing what is essentially some very dark cases, in a dark, wintry, and isolated place.

Longtime readers of this blog will recognize how momentous of an occasion this is for me – a new David Sedaris book! He is my favourite writer, and receiving his latest book of essays for review is always something I look forward to. He’s an incredibly prolific writer so he does have new books fairly often, but still, reading them just gives me so much pleasure, I can’t help but give a little dance of joy when a new one lands on my doorstep.

I’ve been on a streak of reading really good historical fiction centering women lately, and I’ve just completed another to add to that list of recommended reads: A Daughter’s Place by Martha Bátiz. It focuses on the women surrounding the famous author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, most specifically, his illegitimate daughter Isabel.

I was delighted to discover the debut novel by Calgary author Blair Palmer Yoxall, titled Treat Them as Buffalo, was published by major publishing house, HarperCollins Canada – yay for bigger marketing budgets! The demand continues to grow for Indigenous books by Indigenous authors, but in this case, Yoxall is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, so a different perspective, but another valuable addition to the growing body of Indigenous perspectives in Canada.

I’m focusing on works of historical fiction this month, and Liberty Street by Heather Marshall is next on my list. I hesitated to pick it up because it;s a whopping 430 pages, but I knew this Canadian author’s debut book was popular so figured it wouldn’t be a tedious read. This is most definitely a plot driven novel with a mystery at the heart of it, so I found it did move quickly, but it’s likely going to be one of those books that I enjoy then forget about just a few weeks later.

The latest novel from Ian Williams titled You’ve Changed has been sitting on my shelf for over a year now, and when I had a break in my reading schedule I picked it up, eager to finally get to it. Why was I so excited? Because the premise was simple yet highly relatable; it’s about a marriage slowly breaking down, the couple drifting apart as they begin to explore new parts of themselves that they had previously suppressed. If it sounds ominous, that’s because it is.

I am a child of the ’90s, and like many, will see that decade as a golden one because they are the years before social media ruined us all. Perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic here, but I share these sentiments with the author Melissa Auf der Maur who writes about this special decade in her recent memoir Even the Good Girls Will Cry, a ’90s Rock Memoir.

I’ve been asked to speak about The Measure by Nikki Erlick at the Big Book Club here in Calgary this week, which I’m more than happy to do. To help myself prepare for the one hour presentation (!) , I figured I’d bang out a quick review here. No doubt many of you have heard of this novel, which was released to much fanfare in 2022, and once you read the book summary below, you’ll understand why it’s so popular.

There’s so many domestic thriller writers right now it’s hard to keep track of them. I’m always discovering new ones (and by discovering, I mean book publicists pitching them to me, because I’m lazy), and I make an effort to read at least one book by each I’m introduced to, just in case I discover my next new favourite author this way.