Reading Room

The Fun Times Brigade  by Lindsay Zier-Vogel Book*hug Press 362 pages $25 This spring, at the start of my maternity leave, I had the pleasure of reading Lindsay Zier-Vogel’s second novel, The Fun Times Brigade. It wasn’t my first baby, but I’d somehow forgotten so...

Crohnic  by Jason Purcell Arsenal Pulp Press 104 pages $20 In Jason Purcell’s sophomore poetry collection, Crohnic, we are invited into an intimate exploration of the author’s treatment for Crohn’s disease (reflected in the collection’s clever title), alongside...

Parade of Storms by Evelyn Lau Anvil Press 76 pages $18 In her tenth poetry collection, former Vancouver poet laureate Evelyn Lau places weather at the forefront, interweaving reflections on grief, illness, and mortality. Divided into five sections, Lau’s work...

Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community by Maggie Helwig Coach House Books 176 pages $25 In Encampment, a hard-hitting, soft-spoken melee of memoir, homily, and exposé, Maggie Helwig lays bare Toronto’s homelessness crisis and the systems underpinning...

Endsickness by Sofia Alarcon Conundrum Press 150 pages $25 The cover of Endsickness, Sofia Alarcon’s debut collection of graphic stories, pays homage to Frida Kahlo’s 1938 painting What the Water Gave Me, often considered to be her first surrealist work. In Kahlo’s...