As a voracious reader and English Lit student I spent my first few years of university harbouring a secret indifference to classical literature. Enter Anne Carson and Autobiography of Red, the book that changed the way I understood classical myth and literature and kicked off my love affair with the works of Anne Carson. So saying I was cracking open Antigonick with the bar set high might be a bit of an understatement. I’m delighted to report I was not disappointed!

Antigonick, a translation of Sophokles’ Antigone, is worth a trek to your local bookstore just to see in person. Bianca Stone’s illustrations are set on translucent vellum stock, creating intruiging effects when overlapped with the hand-lettered text below.

Carson’s work is entrenched with a sense of play and wonder that seems almost childlike at times, and the sarcastic tone of the chorus feels wonderfully adolescent and indulgent. “You’re late to learn what’s what aren’t you” they tell Theban king Kreon, in a moment of “I told you so” that had me laughing out loud. The playfulness of Carson’s work almost tricks you into having fun with Antigone the way she does, and in Antigonick Carson brings you into a world that feels current, even though the story dates back nearly three thousand years. Her playful energy is not limited to the comic, as she easily captures moments that seem to luxuriate in cynicism — “Look here comes hope/wandering in/to tickle your feet/then you notice the soles are on fire”. These tonal peaks and valleys are what gives Antigonick its unsettling resonance.

As Carson writes of Aphrodite “you play with us, you play deeply”, I’d suggest that, Anne Carson, so do you — you play deeply. And your readers thank you!

I love a good thriller. Always have. But I’ll admit that I’m a bit picky. I don’t love all of them, and if I’ve read it before, I don’t want to read it again. When I think of what makes a good thriller, I imagine an older married couple. The husband asks the wife, “Where would you like to go for our anniversary?” The wife says, “I don’t know. Somewhere different. Surprise me.”

As a reader who’s been in this relationship with thrillers for a while, I want what the wife wants: I want a book to take me somewhere I’ve never been before; I want to have no clue where I’m going; and I want to be surprised by what I find when I get there.

That’s why I loved William Landay’s Defending Jacob. It succeeds on all fronts. Andy Barber is a respected district attorney in suburban Massachusetts, but his world is shattered when his own teenage son becomes the main suspect in the murder of a local kid. From that starting point, nothing goes where you think it will. What results is a sophisticated, deeply disturbing and morally challenging novel that pits a father’s loyalty to his son against his core beliefs in justice and the rule of law.

Not every writer prompts the literary community to offer up praise on a platter, but Landay’s novel has, eliciting advance quotes from Lee Child, Nicholas Sparks, Chevy Stevens and Linwood Barclay (from whom I first heard a rave about this book).

That’s all I’m going to say about it. Pick it up. I can promise that you’ll be led somewhere different, that you’ll never know where you’re heading, and that in the end, you’ll be surprised. What could be more thrilling than that?

I do love a good historical mystery – ones that give me insight into a time and place gone by. I especially like the early novels of David Liss, particularily A Conspiracy of Paper, and Lynn Shepherd’s new novel The Solitary House is very reminiscent of that wonderful book. Her earlier book, Murder at Mansfield Park, brilliantly reimagined the time of Jane Austen, and The Solitary House explores the gas lit, back alleys of Dickens’ London.

Charles Maddox was an up-and-coming officer for the Metropolitan police until a charge of insubordination abruptly ended his career. Now he works alone, struggling to eke out a living by tracking down criminals. Whenever he needs it, he has the help of his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary “thief taker,” a detective as brilliant and intuitive as they come.

He’s approached by Edward Tulkinghorn, the shadowy and feared attorney, who offers him a handsome price to do some sleuthing for a client. Powerful financier Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and Tulkinghorn wants Charles to—discreetly—find and stop whoever is responsible. What starts as a relatively straight forward case soon spirals out of control, and is further complicated when uncle Maddox shows signs of forgetfulness and anger, symptoms of an age-related ailment that has yet to be named. (To further confuse matters, this book is published in UK under another title – Tom-All-Alone’s.)

History. Adventure. Science fiction. Suspense.

Musical composition. Comet-shaped birthmarks. Rebellion. Nuclear power. Vanity publishing.

David Mitchell masterfully weaves together a novel that defies the very bounds of itself. To say much more would be against the spirit of the book. So, just this: I loved it.

Cloud Atlas will soon be released as a film starring Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent.

Imagine: You have wronged someone (it does not matter who or why) and have neither the time, words, nor inclination to apologize for yourself.

Enter, four bright but drifting friends, plagued by boredom and haunted both by past demons and ghosts. The quartet turn what started as a lark into a very profitable business, apologizing – on a contract basis – to injured parties on behalf of people and businesses. Business is soon booming and life is good.

However, upon reaching their latest assignment, they discover a corpse nailed to a wall. They are to apologize to the victim on behalf of the murderer and dispose of the body, or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately for the young entrepreneurs, this is just the beginning of a deadly game of cat and mouse with the killer.

The story alternates between voices, past and present and totally unreliable narrators, making Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar, a deliciously complex read. But be warned: this clever novel is not for the squeamish, nor easily offended – but, if you like Mo Hayder, Stieg Larsson, flawed characters, and novels with plenty of twists and turns, then this book is for you.

I’ll admit it: I’m a huge John Irving fan (you might have previously read my “Staff Fave” for A Son of the Circus). And I was thrilled to be one of the first internal readers of his newest novel, In One Person, when it was first submitted to Knopf Canada. And let me tell you, as an Irving fan, it does not disappoint. Everything you want is there: the expertly crafted yet easy-to-read language, the beautifully-wrought cast of unique characters (you’ll fall in love with Ms. Frost), and the beautiful blend of the immersive feel of a specific time and place with a kind of timeless relevance that I know will keep readers coming back to this novel for decades to come.

In One Person is also simultaneously a departure from Irving’s most recent novels and a return to some of his older material. The novel’s narrator and protagonist, Billy Abbott, grows up in a small Vermont town that so wonderfully mirrors the setting of A Prayer for Owen Meany that Irving fans will feel right at home, and new readers will get a brand-new taste of Irving at his finest. But In One Person is also Irving’s most politically charged book since The Cider House Rules: whereas the latter took on the abortion debate, Irving’s new novel tackles the issue of sexual diversity by telling the story of a bisexual man’s coming-of-age in the second half of the twentieth century, culminating in the 1980s and the AIDs epidemic.

This novel is personal and panoramic; it’s quirky and witty and funny and deadly serious; it will make you laugh and it will make you cry; and you won’t be able to put it down. (I sure didn’t: I read it non-stop over two evenings!)

I heard about this book from colleagues long before it was published. They talked about the power of the story and how well it was written. This book has now struck a chord with readers across North America and is landing on bestseller lists from coast-to-coast. Behind the Beautiful Forevers tells the story of families living in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement right near the luxury hotels of Mumbai. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Katherine Boo has a gift for sharing the inside story of these people’s lives while remaining an outside observer. These people, and their stories, are very powerful and not easily forgotten.

I signed on with the Lloyd Jones fan club after reading his breath-stealing novel Mister Pip. I’ve waded in his writing ever since, more or less to the same level of enjoyment. Until I read The Book of Fame. The novel is based on actual events (a team of New Zealanders tour the UK in 1905), but it is not history. It involves a sport (said team—the “All-Blacks”—play rugby) but requires no expertise in scrums and touches and wingbacks.

I know little more about rugby now than I did before I read The Book of Fame. But I do know more about human nature, camaraderie, and humility in the glare of the spotlight, than I ever thought possible. The novel, like Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter or Baricco’s Silk, is art of the highest, most literary kind: ambitious, unique, utterly engaging, eloquent.

And, if such a thing were possible, better than Mister Pip.

Every now and then a novel comes along that simultaneously fulfills the familiar demands of the mystery genre, while adding just enough new flavour to make the experience of reading both comfortable and refreshing. Such is the case with Erasing Memory, the first novel in the MacNeice Mystery series by Scott Thornley.

It’s my experience that great novels, be they mysteries or not, are driven by great characters, and Thornley doesn’t disappoint. His protagonist, Detective Superintendant MacNeice, has the right combination of encyclopedic knowledge, deductive reasoning, and street toughness that you can’t help but love in a detective. His passions are broad and deep, as are the scars of a turbulent past (especially with regard to his deceased wife).

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