Six books to add to your must-read list
From family travels to crime solving, pick up one of these novels from B.C. authors this fall
With summer now a fading memory and your collection of dog-eared beach books abandoned on a coffee table at a cabin somewhere you can turn your thoughts to creating your new fall to-be-read pile.
Pro tip: Check out the reading list for the always awesome Vancouver Writers Festival (Oct. 17-23). This is a great way to familiarize yourself with many of the 115 authors that will be taking part in this year's festival.
Here at Postmedia News we are offering up a selection of books from B.C. writers for great reading this fall:
A GELATO A DAY: TRUE STORIES OF FAMILY TRAVEL Edited by Claudia Laroye | Guernica Editions
This collection of stories from a wide range of authors is about the ups-and-downs of travelling as a family. But good news, the tales in this collection go beyond holidays-gone-wrong to bigger-picture connectivity.
Fun fact: The title is pulled from Vancouver travel expert Laroye's own tantrum avoiding bribery tactic she used on occasion with her own kids.
JUNIE Chelene Knight | Book*hug Press FIVE MOVES OF DOOM A.J. Devlin | Newest Press
Vancouver's Knight brings 1930s Hogan's Alley alive through the eyes of a girl struggling to find her own artistic voice while dodging the shadow of her difficult and increasingly alcohol dependent mother.
As Junie's mother drifts further into the drink and her East Vancouver neighbourhood, once packed with flourishing businesses and community care, begins to disappear she must face some difficult personal truths and set her own path.
Packed with history and heart, this is one great debut novel. Vancouver's Devlin is back with his third entry into his award-winning Hammerhead Jed crime series.
This time out his crime-solving protagonist gets a case about a missing UFC championship belt. His search takes him into an underground fight circuit — a world of thieves, bodybuilders, yoga enthusiasts and even baby goats.
HOLDEN AFTER AND BEFORE
Tara McGuire | Arsenal
Pulp Press
The subtitle for this new heart-wrenching and beautifully written memoir is Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose.
Certainly this is a tough topic but thoughts of not wanting to get bummed-out should be pushed aside as this book is a unique, insightful memoir — McGuire imagines conversations and situations as she pieces together facts — about one mother's search for understanding after her son joins the legions of those who have died during the continuing opioid crisis. This one is hard to put down.
ALONE IN THE GREAT UNKNOWN: ONE WOMAN'S REMARKABLE ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHWESTERN WILDERNESS
Caroll Simpson | Harbour Publishing Have you ever thought about doing a complete 180 with your life? Well, Caroll Simpson did, and she has documented it in this story about leaving the city behind and heading deep into the B.C. wilderness to open a fishing lodge with her husband.
Sadly, not long into the adventure/life reinvention tragedy strikes and everything changes.
MY INDIAN SUMMER Joseph Kawkwinokanasum | Tidewater Press
For 12-year-old Hunter the summer of 1979 is life-changing. After his mother and older siblings leave him, he has to survive on his wits, his friends and a bit of help and care from a trio of elders.
Life lessons and hard knocks abound as Hunter is in a hurry to start a new life.