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The Piano Man’s Daughter Special Edition © 1995 Harper Collins 499 pages I’ve read Findley before: Pilgrim: A Novel and The Wars. Although this title sounded a little too Hallmark-ish  for my taste, I gave it a shot on the strength of his other books and my love for pianos. The novel felt painfully average. [...]

The Year of the Flood: A Novel © 2009 McClelland & Stewart 434 pages In Oryx and Crake, Atwood painted a future where advances in genetic engineering created a plague that eradicated most of humanity. I loved the novel for its realism—many of the engineered creatures Atwood envisioned had already been created. It was a [...]

Downtown Owl: A Novel© 2008 Scribner (2009) 275 pages I was flipping through Klosterman at Chapters when an employee came up behind me and started gushing about him. The bookseller compared Klosterman to Douglas Coupland—I was sold. Downtown Owl is a story about three people in a small town in 1983/84 North Dakota. Mitch is [...]

Father Elijah: An Apocalypse © 1996 Ingatius 597 pages Holy. O’Brien’s writing bleeds holiness. I took a chance with this book. I was browsing the religion section at “So Many Books…” in Huntsville when I saw the tell-tale band across a plain spine that marks Ignatius Press books. That along with the promise of an [...]

The Complete Stories © 1971 Farrar, Straus and Giroux 555 pages Brutal. I was racking my brain to come up with the perfect superlative to describe O’Connor’s short stories and nothing fits better. All of the recurring themes—racism, murder, loss, pain, religious fanaticism—are written with an edge that can make you physically wince while reading. [...]

Man Who Was Thursday (Wordsworth Collection) © 1908 Wordsworth (1995) 145 pages You’ve got to be curious about any book described as a “surreal anarchist fantasy” (Wordsworth edition introduction). I was pleased to find the classic wit of Chesterton on every page. This book’s paradoxical. Chesterton’s writing is expansive and leisurely, yet the pace of [...]

Of Mice and Men © 1937 Bantam Books (1984) 118 pages I’m going to go ahead and assume you’ve already read this book. If you haven’t, go and read it then come back. It’s a classic for a reason! I spent the day after I finished to book wondering how I became so emotionally involved [...]

Armageddon in Retrospect © 2008 Berkley Books 232 pages This doesn’t feel like the posthumous collection it is. These stories are impeccably crafted, and fit perfectly together. That’s a credit to the skill of the writer: even his non-published works are eminently publishable. I started to read Vonnegut after watching him interact with Jon Stewart [...]

Kiss of the Fur Queen © 1998 Doubleday Canada Limited 310 pages I’m glad I picked this one up at the library instead of spending my hard-earned $32.95 on it. (Okay, I’m a pastor—some would debate “hard-earned”!) I know this is supposed to be a spirited tale of redemption, but it just felt tragic and [...]

The Corrections: A Novel © 2001 Farrar, Straus and Giroux 568 pages I took a quick look at the Amazon reviews for this book and was quite surprised. I just assumed everyone would love it—I certainly did! The Corrections is an massive work. The plot is simple on the surface: an elderly woman wants to [...]