The Last Gifts of the Universe, by Riley August (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Two young humans and their intrepid cat Pumpkin search the universe for messages from long-extinct alien species, but are up against an evil corporation who wants to keep any discoveries behind their paywalls.

Review: This was a bit rough around the edges; even at ~200 pages it felt repetitive and plodding in places, and there are plot points that didn‘t feel ‘right‘. ⬇️

Clueless Puckboy (Puckboys 5), by Saxon James and Eden Finley (2023)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A young player struggles with a crush on the team‘s physiotherapist.

Review: The diminishing returns with this series continue here. This is a perfectly serviceable romance, but doesn‘t do anything other than tick off the boxes.

All Systems Red & Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries 1 & 2), by Martha Wells (2017-18)—RE-READS
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A cyborg designed to be a weapon of mass destruction but who really just wants to ignore the world and watch their shows struggles to adjust to a new life situation.

Review: Murderbot Diaries is one of my favourite series, so when I recently wanted some easy listens on a vacation, I was excited to revisit these novellas. ⬇️

Coexistence, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2024 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A collection of stories about Cree men and their search for love and belonging in colonized lands.

Review: I felt that Belcourt‘s earlier book was sociology awkwardly stuffed into a fictional narrative. Here he struck the perfect balance between his critical inferesfs and accessible storytelling. ⬇️

When the Cranes Fly South, by Lisa Ridzén (2024, transl. 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Swedish man struggles to adapt to the increasing humiliations and losses of old age and the well-intentioned meddling of his son.

Review: This is a beautiful book, in its empathetic treatment of elder care and aging with dignity and in its portrayal of masculinity. ⬇️

Flashlight, by Susan Choi (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A man‘s disappearance while out for a walk on the beach with his daughter in 1970s Japan reverberates across the decades.

Review: Books told from multiple perspectives rise and fall with the sharpness of those perspectives, and this was my experience with this Booker longlist title. The sections dealing with the mother and daughter‘s lack of understanding of each other shine. ⬇️

Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney (2017)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An exploration of the origins, epidemiology, and lasting impacts of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Review: This is an exceptional—and disturbingly prescient—book. So much of this felt like it was written in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet it was published years before. ⬇️

The Black Death in London, by Barney Sloane (2011)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A look at the impact of the Black Death on the city of London and environs.

Review: This book‘s greatest success is in its incredible detail. Sadly that‘s also it‘s greatest weakness. Even as someone very nerdy about history, archaeology, and public health, the level of detail here was overwhelming and felt unnecessary. ⬇️

Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, by Robert Farrar Capon (2002)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An omnibus edition of the author‘s engaging reflections on the parables of Jesus.

Review: In hindsight I wish I‘d reviewed the three volumes that went into this omnibus edition separately, as each book has its own personality. ⬇️

Love Forms, by Claire Adam (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A London woman looks back on her childhood in Trinidad, motherhood, and especially the traumatic events that brought her to the UK.

Review: I have a hard time reviewing this one. The reflections on motherhood and adoption are absolutely stunning — eleventy stars — and are undoubtedly why the book has received so much attention. ⬇️

When in England, you buy the Booker-listed titles not yer released in North America. #bookerlist

Audition, by Katie Kitamura (2025)

Premise: A sliding doors exploration of relationships and the roles we play.

Review: This is a very smart novel: the first half explores an actress struggling with a new role who finds herself confronted by a young man who thinks he may be her son; the second explores that same woman thriving in her role and as the mother of that same young man. Both halves also explore her marriage from different directions.⬇️

Misinterpretation, by Ledia Xhoga (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: An interpreter in New York‘s Albanian diaspora has her life complicated by her poor boundaries with her clients and friends.

Review: This Booker longlist title strikes a balance between being accessible and enigmatic that perfectly fits its themes. ⬇️

Until August, by Gabriel García Márquez (2024 posthumous)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A woman‘s annual trip to an island to visit her mother‘s grave becomes an opportunity to explore her sexuality outside her marriage.

Review: This release of an unfinished work by Márquez is very good. The only thing that made it feel unfinished is its ending, which felt rushed, with some magical realism that hadn‘t been earned.

The Land in Winter, by Andrew Miller (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Two marriages unravel in the midst of an unusually brutal English winter.

Review: This is a solid and subtle historical novel filled with all foreboding atmosphere and complex relationships you could want. It‘s a very literary and writerly novel, in the sense that everything the author does is intentional and well executed. ⬇️

Foolish Puckboy (Puckboys 4), by Saxon James and Eden Finley (2023)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: When a Queer Collective party gets out of control, a sexy fireman gets an eyeful of a newly out pansexual hockey player.

Review: I‘m definitely reaching some diminishing returns with this series. This was a cute romance, but lacked in the story front. ⬇️

Endling, by Maria Reva (2025 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: The plans of 3 Ukrainian women—one trying to preserve critically endangered snails and two trying to bring down the dating tourism industry—and 1
a disaffected Ukrainian-Canadian man are upended when Russian forces invade.

Review: This is one of the strangest books I‘ve read, from its unique content/themes to the incursion of real-world events into the book‘s autofictional elements. ⬇️

Blood on Her Tongue, by Johanna van Veen (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: The discovery of a bog body showing signs of ritualized killing unleashes terror upon a nineteenth-century Dutch estate.

Review: This is contemporary gothic fiction at its best. ⬇️

The South, by Tash Aw (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: Two young men from very different backgrounds form a connection during one dry Malaysian summer.

Review: This is a fascinating window book, exploring not only queerness in a SE Asian context, but also how urban-rural, racial, and class divides play out in Malaysia. Overall this worked very well, but I was left wanting a bit more from it.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper (2015 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: An 82-year-old Saskatchewan woman living with dementia embarks on a long-desired trip to see the ocean, leaving her ailing husband alone with his memories.

Review: This novel felt to me like it wasn‘t sure whether it wanted to be a modern fairy tale or something more down to earth. Its themes of dreams deferred and duty, and depiction of prairie are great.⬇️

Universality, by Natasha Brown (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A disturbing satire of the current state of journalism and public discourse

Review: While this has a lot going for it, it felt like a cynical take down of the easiest targets in our media landscape, and offered nothing in the way of an alternative or way forward. ⬇️

Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger (1961) - Re-Read
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A classic two-story collection about the existential struggles of the two youngest grown children in a famous family.

Review: Salinger excels as always in his incisive satire of social norms; here his portrayal of disaffected and cynical undergrad Franny is perfect. ⬇️

The Weather Machine, by Andrew Blum (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A look at the history and science of weather forecasting.

Review: The content in this was good but left me a bit disappointed. Nothing was wrong with it; I just wanted more science.

Common Goals (Game Changers 4), by Rachel Reid (2020 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An aging demisexual goalie contemplates both his unexplored bisexuality and his biases when he meets the much younger friend of a teammate.

Review: This was enjoyable even if it didn‘t hit quite as hard as Reid often can. I appreciated the reflection on middle age and unexplored aspects of personality, and loved the appearances from the previous heroes in this series.⬇️

A Change of Habit, by Sister Monica Clare (Powell) (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A memoir of one woman‘s journey from a chaotic childhood, through a struggling career in Hollywood, to her ultimate discernment of monastic vocation.

Review: This is a solid memoir that beautifully describes the author‘s life story. But, as a book, I found it a bit unfocused. ⬇️

Clean, by Alia Trabucco Zerán (2023, transl. 2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A maid tells her story to the police when she comes under suspicion for the death of her employers‘ daughter.

Review: There‘s a lot about this that worked really well: I loved the premise, appreciated the way the class dynamics were presented in the Chilean context, and enjoyed main character‘s crisp point of view. ⬇️

Julie Chan is Dead, by Liann Zhang (2025 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A down-on-her-luck twenty-something stumbles into taking over her dead twin sister‘s social media empire, but uncovers disturbing truths behind her success.

Review: There is probably no group today more ripe for satire than social media influencers. I thought this did a pretty good job of doing that, overall. I loved how it showed how the demands of the algorithm ⬇️

The Lady He Lost (Lucky Ladies of London 1), by Faye Delacour (🇨🇦 2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: Jane has a plan to make her own way in the world, despite the strictures of early Victorian high society, but her plans are complicated when a neighbour returns home, two years after being declared dead.
⬇️

My Father Always Finds Corpses (Jarrod Jarvis Mysteries 1), by Lee Hollis (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Premise: A former child star teams up with his grown daughter to solve the mystery of her estranged boyfriend, an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker with a startling number of enemies.
⬇️

Perspective(s), by Laurent Binet (2023, transl. 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An epistolary mystery set in the midst of the political, social, artistic, and religious upheavals of Renaissance Florence.

Review: An ‘entertaining‘ and accessible Binet novel is still smarter and stranger than most literary fiction. ⬇️

Detective Beans: The Case of the Missing Hat, by Li Chen (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A plucky kitten solves the greatest mystery of his young detective career: the loss of his favourite fedora.

Review: This is just pure graphic novel cuteness. That is all.

Bookish Pair: Cat‘s Cafe by Gwen Tarpley (2020)

No Hiding in Boise, by Kim Hooper (2021)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Premise: The aftermath of a mass shooting through the eyes of its survivors and those left behind.

Review: This is the kind of book that could very easily come across as manipulative, preachy, or overly sentimental⬇️.

Frying Plantain, by Zalika Reid-Benta (2019 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Interconnected stories about growing up in a first-generation Jamaican-Canadian family.

Review: This is a very strong collection, well-written, with a lot of heart. Toronto‘s Eglinton West neighbourhood really comes alive, as the main character and her mother are pushed toward and pulled away from it. ⬇️

Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami (2009, transl. 2021)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Two bullied Japanese teenagers form a tenuous friendship.

Review: This was a very hard read. The descriptions of the bullying the two main characters experience are vivid and intense, and increase in severity as the book goes on. ⬇️

Orbiting Jupiter, by Gary D. Schmidt (2015)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A rural family takes in a teenager prematurely matured by a series of tragic events.

Review: I can‘t say enough about this wonderful (older middle grade) book about the grace of second chances. ⬇️

The Winter‘s Tale, by William Shakespeare (ca. 1610)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A paranoid tyrant destroys his family and friendships, but everything works out in the end.

Review: I‘m slowly working my way through Shakespeare‘s catalog, and have to say this was my least favourite so far. The plot depends on a wholly unmotivated turn by a main character, whip then disappears for the meat of his narrative arc, only to reappear in time for a happy ending. ⬇️

Pizza Girl, by Jean Kyoung Frazier (2020)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A pregnant LA teenager who works at a pizza place becomes obsessed with a harried mother who always orders pepperoni and pickle.

Review: This is as bold as it is quirky. The main character is a complete mess and she knows it. For the most part, I enjoyed seeing her struggle to figure herself out. ⬇️

After 1177 BC, by Eric Cline (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An exploration of the latest evidence on the recovery of the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, and Mespotamian worlds in the aftermath of the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

Review: I am a big fan of Cline‘s book 1177 BC, which documented the disappearance within a single generation of a centuries-old network of civilizations. ⬇️

Vlad, by Carlos Fuentes (2010, transl. 2012)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: The life of a middle-aged Mexican lawyer takes a turn for the horrific when he‘s asked to help an old friend of his boss relocate to Mexico City.

Review: This doesn‘t have great reviews, but I found this to be a very successful piece of contemporary Gothic fiction that played with traditional vampire lore in interesting ways.

Hungerstone, by Kat Dunn (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A Sapphic retelling of Carmilla set in Industrial Britain.

Review: This was a disappointment for me. A Sapphic retelling of an already Sapphic novel, retold in essentially the same time period (though a different location), I was left wondering … why? ⬇️

Hit Girls, by Nora Princiotti (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A closer look at the female pop stars that defined pop culture in the ‘00s

Review: Nora Princiotti is a staff writer for the pop culture site The Ringer (where she also cohosts the popular Every Single Album podcast), and she brings that site‘s patented blend of informed, personal, and referential writing to this book. ⬇️

Strange Houses, by Uketsu (2021, transl. 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: The discovery of an unmarked space on the floor plan of a house for sale piques the curiosity of a writer and his architect friend, to creepy effect.

Review: Like so many others, I was totally taken by Uketsu‘s Strange Pictures earlier this year. This one doesn‘t quite hit the same highs, but was still a delicious dose of the author‘s macabre and mysterious sensibilities.

Vanishing World, by Sayaka Murata (2015, transl. 2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: This speculative novel explores the social impacts of a world in which sexual reproduction is considered obsolete (and kinda gross).

Review: This is my favourite kind of speculative fiction, changing a single detail about our present world then exploring its impacts to a logical extreme. ⬇️

Medea, by Euripides (431 BCE)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: Spurned princess Medea plots revenge upon her faithless lover Jason

Review: Euripides‘ plays have stood the test of time for a reason. They demonstrate a keen and nuanced understanding of the human psyche. Is Medea portrayed as a monster or as a sympathetic victim? ⬇️

A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove 2), by Tessa Dare (2012)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A burgeoning geologist enlists the help of a notorious rake to get her across the country so she can deliver a paper to a society.

Review: I adored the first book in this series, as well as the holiday novella released before this official book 2. Sadly this didn‘t hit the same highs for me, though this is not likely the fault of the book. Cont.

Warriors of Anatolia, by Trevor Bryce (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A survey of the rise, reign, and fall of the Hittite Empire from one of the major English-language scholars of the field.

Review: Hittite history is notoriously difficult to understand, due primarily to a lack of solid evidence. This volume is a solid attempt at putting the available pieces together. Cont.

Flux, by Jinwoo Chong (2023)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A young man‘s life takes a bizarre turn when, after miraculously surviving a fall down an elevator shaft, he‘s recruited to a work a new tech company that promises to revolutionize the energy sector.

Review: this book is incredibly high-concept—the premise above only touches half of what‘s going on—and every plot line comes at things at odd angles. Cont.

Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot (2018 🇨🇦)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: An unflinchingly honest memoir about growing up and living with abuse and mental illness while Indigenous

Review: This memoir takes a no holds barred # approach and I think is much better for it. Mailhot bares all here, in all her intelligence and education and all her trauma, illness, and heartbreak. Cont.

Proto, by Laura Spinney (2025)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Premise: A look at the latest evidence about the history of the Indo-European languages and the people who have spoken them.

Review: This is a truly excellent work of popular history, incorporating archaeological, linguistic, and increasingly genetic evidence to piece together our current best guesses about this diverse language family, which is as mysterious as it is common. Cont.

Mice 1961, by Stacey Levine (2024)
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Premise: A mysterious narrator looks on as orphaned half sisters find themselves at crossed purposes during a neighbourhood potluck.

Review: This was a surprise finalist for the Pulitzer Prize this year so I was very curious to pick it up. This is an absolute masterclass in setting and atmosphere, and unique in its approach to storytelling. Cont.