Books

Penguin wakes up to a sleeper of a book — The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep

The publishing giant has snapped up the rights to the kids’ story, originally self-published by its author but on best-seller lists this summer, in which characters like Uncle Yawn and Sleepy Snail help children nod off.

This week's top book reviews

How Haruki Murakami became a writer comments

Andy Warhol: Capturing the moment he became an icon

Deborah Davis’ chronicle of Warhol’s travels on the hipster highway, Route 66, capture the moment the artist met Hollywood and became a superstarcomments

Reckless: English debut of Turkey’s “Kafka”

Hasan Ali Toptas has created a world where memories and dreams coalesce to a create strange, troubling but compelling ride of a novel.comments
Ann Beattie’s The State We’re In: Reviewed

Beattie's hallmark style, the writing that lands her in the company of Carver and Updike, is back.comments
Shaping lives: the story of a Bangladeshi in New York

Bright Lines, the debut novel by Tanwi Nandini Islam nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel, is “a promising start”comments
In Another Country by David Constantine: Review

Popular in the U.K. and difficult to categorize, Constantine makes his North American debut with “style and conviction”comments

News

IFOA 2015 releases initial festival lineupcomments

Writers in Canada make less than in 1998comments

Toronto Public Library scraps used book buying programcomments

First look: E.L. James’ new novel Grey tells story from Christian’s perspectivecomments

Features

Literary Awards and Prizes

Books

Jane Munro, Michael Longley win 2015 Griffin Poetry Prizecomments

Penguin wakes up to a sleeper of a book — The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep

Wed Sep 02 2015

The publishing giant has snapped up the rights to the kids’ story, originally self-published by its author but on best-seller lists this summer, in which characters like Uncle Yawn and Sleepy Snail help children nod off. comments
David Lagercrantz: The author who kicked the hornet’s nest

Tue Sep 01 2015

The mantle left by Stieg Larsson and his Millennium Series has been picked up by a new writer: he talks to us about carrying comments
Oliver Sacks dies at 82: Neurologist and author known as ‘the poet laureate of medicine’

Sun Aug 30 2015

Oliver Sacks, a professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, wrote more than a dozen books, most of them accounts of patients with brain conditions.comments
Socialite turns funeral director: let the laughs begin

Sat Aug 29 2015

Elizabeth Meyer's memoir Good Mourning (get it?) lifts a veil on how we mourn our dead, no matter what social class we inhabitcomments
Buck 65 takes the wheel in Wicked and Weird

Sat Aug 29 2015

Fictionalized autobiography written from the point of view of Rich Terfry's alter egocomments
Wicked and Weird: is this the real story of Buck 65?

Sat Aug 29 2015

Baseball, music . . . and women; the abiding passions of CBC Radio's Rich Terfry, aka rap artist Buck 65. comments
In Joan Didion’s unauthorized biography, she gets the last word

Sat Aug 29 2015

Cultural icon and writer Didion didn't co-operate with biographer Tracy Daugherty, leaving the book short on real insight.comments
Page-turning family saga takes on Egyptian conundrum

Sat Aug 29 2015

Alaa Al Aswany, described as Egypt's Anne Tyler, writes a riveting family saga based in the 1940s but with resonance in today’s post-Arab Spring Middle East
Spine-tingling thrills: Five reads aimed at women

Sat Aug 29 2015

Old secrets, violent death, jealousy, anger and betrayal — all staples of these five mysteries and thrillers aimed at women.comments
Bestsellers

Sat Aug 29 2015

The books Canadians bought this weekcomments
Lawrence Hill’s The Illegal: A sneak peek

Fri Aug 28 2015

New novel from Book of Negroes author was inspired by stories of undocumented refugees.comments
Sneak Peek: The Girl in the Spider’s Web, continuing the Millenium Series

Thu Aug 27 2015

Stieg Larsson fans have been waiting for the latest in the series, by David Lagercrantz, who’s continuing the adventures of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.comments
Helen Weinzweig’s writings revived five years after her death

Tue Aug 25 2015

Excerpt from A View From the Roof staged at Toronto Reference Library Aug. 27 while House of Anansi reissues Basic Black With Pearls comments
2015 Toronto Book Awards shortlist announced

Mon Aug 24 2015

Andre Alexis, Margaret Atwood, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Bruce McDougall and Emily St. John Mandel up for $10,000 prizecomments
Camilla Gibb carves out her own kind of happy

Sat Aug 22 2015

Gibb's laser-like, spare writing omits a lot of detail but none of the depth of her journey to deal with sudden, devastating changes to her life comments
Whodunit: the latest mysteries reviewed

Sat Aug 22 2015

Much for mystery lovers: read a new book by Giles Blunt, bear silent witness to a man in a coma, learn the details of the darker arts and tour with a Scottish bandcomments
Strength of Conviction by Tom Mulcair: Review

Sat Aug 22 2015

With the October election looming NDP leader tells his personal political story. comments
Bestsellers

Sat Aug 22 2015

The book Canadians bought this week comments
Injustice and discrimination: Powerful story of Korean prisoners

Sat Aug 22 2015

The investigation chronicles an important story of Korea’s fight for independence from Japan.comments
Stephen Harper by John Ibbitson: Review

Sat Aug 22 2015

As an October election looms, the most comprehensive biography of the prime minister to date is hard to put down.comments