Guernica Editions

Open Book interviewed K.R. Wilson about his novel CALL ME STAN.

The germ of the novel was something that has puzzled me most of my adult life: the jarring disconnect between opera composer Richard Wagner’s vile anti-Semitism and his lifelong fascination with the Buddha, a figure of universal compassion, who he even wanted to write an opera about, though he never did. I felt like I wanted to write something about that, but I didn’t know what. Then at some point that idea intersected with the legend of the immortal referred to as the Wandering Jew, and the rest of the novel kind of unspooled from there.

Read the full interview:

https://open-book.ca/News/K.R.-Wilson-on-His-Daring-New-Novel-that-Follows-One-Memorable-Character-from-the-Fall-of-Rome-to-Contemporary-Toronto

Daniel Rhodes reviewed Against the Machine: Manifesto by Brian Van Norman for The Book Commentary.

This is an intelligently written story that brilliantly showcases how machines take control of human beings and define their interests and social values. The author creates characters that are sophisticated, multilayered, and believable and thrusts them into realities that strongly resonate with contemporary readers. Readers are forced to interrogate themselves about the line separating their humanity from the digital environment into which they are trapped. It is hard to read this story without pausing to think about the hold that technology has on us. The writing is gorgeous and crisp, and Van Norman’s descriptions are fascinating and detailed.

Read the full review:

https://www.thebookcommentary.com/view-book.php?id=307&banner=no

Elizabeth Masterson gives Call Me Stan a positive review in Library Journal:

Wilson’s (An Idea about My Dead Uncle) latest is great for readers of historical fiction, especially ancient military fiction, or those who prefer character driven stories. Good for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Ken Follett, and Robert Harris.

Read the full review:

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/call-me-stan-a-tragedy-in-three-millennia-1785397

Ghadery’s debut, Fuse, is a collection of personal essays so intimate and engrossing that at times I had the strange sensation that my consciousness had melted and was being subsumed into the author’s. As if the secrets she was telling were mine laid bare on the page instead of hers. This, of course, is an illusion, a deft trick by a skilled writer who transports you so completely and with such immediacy that her vulnerability on the page becomes a self-consciousness you feel viscerally, beneath your ribs.

Read the full review:

http://blog.carouselmagazine.ca/usereview056/

Danielle Barkley reviewed Oana Avasilichioaei's translation of The Strange Scent of Saffron in the Montreal Review of Books.

Babin’s writing is deeply invested in representing the corporeal world, even when that world becomes grotesque. There is the impression that no topic is off limits, especially in the relation to the bodies of young women. Utterly devoid of any attempt at sanitization, Babin depicts young female characters who lust, hunger, bleed, and contract and spread disease.

Read the full review:

https://mtlreviewofbooks.ca/reviews/the-strange-scent-of-saffron-milena-babin/

Spencer Morrison writes about Götterdämmerung in the November issue of LRC:

What might it mean to dance? Gasparini plays coy and invites us to reimagine our relations with a despoiled nature that’s seemingly beyond repair. In this way, “Götterdämmerung” joins a recent body of environmental poetry — see work by Juliana Spahr and Jorie Graham, among others — that recognizes the irremediably damaged state of our environment and eschews grand visions of an unblemished nature beyond civilization’s reach. It tests the powers of a nature poetry that has abandoned hope for ecological restoration.

Read the full piece:

https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2021/11/horns-of-our-dilemma/