Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. 2023. HarperCollins Publishers
From local legend and resident Edmonton bad-ass, a horror novel about family, colonization, and the living memory of the land. A perfect winter read, though it may keep you up at night — out of terror and also because you just gotta find out what happens. This novel is haunting, compelling, and goes down smooth as your favourite winter beverage.
Bury me in the Back Forty: A Personal Anthology of Small-Town Living by Kyler Zeleny. 2024. The Velvet Cell
This visually stunning collection of photographs, found objects, oral histories and small town ephemeras somehow transcends genre. This is a big book about a small town — both whimsical and serious, magical and mundane. A book to read, peruse, ponder, revisit.
Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, translated by Robin Moger. 2024. Transit Books
The translated work of the Egyptian writer and local professor is highly esteemed all over the world, and Canada is finally catching on. After finding the forgotten novel of a writer who mysteriously took her own life, Mersal brilliantly follows the threads wherever they lead, and the final result is both poetic and evocative, personal and political. A friend of the store described Mersal as Anne Carson in Arabic, and ain’t that just the truth.
