Holiday reading requires a certain type of book. I like to evade the hundred or so books on my to-read pile and indulge in a new book that catches my eye. Enter Jess Gibson. Something about the cover of The Good Eye caught my attention. Perhaps it was the frame within a frame motif—a metaphor for the stories? Each story?

It was a good choice. Gibson’s twelve short stories grab your focus and hold it to the end. Each story quickly becomes its own little world. The front flap text promised “sideways tales that wrestle with the limits of perception and possibility.” While Gibson never entered the genre of science fiction or fantasy, a sense of the unknown and unexplainable hovers around these stories.

If you’re taking holidays this summer, I’d highly recommend taking The Good Eye with you. Each story is a bite-sized escape into something unusual.

Gibson, Jess. The Good Eye: Stories. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2026.